[Sneak-peak] What’s in this post?

1. What I did
2. What I am doing
3. What I will be doing

1. I was lucky enough to get to do a whole bunch of things over the 4 months, both with everyday work, the intern events and the people I met here. Myself and two other interns (a dev and a test) got to work on our own project. Yup, just us. Of course we had all the help and support we needed, but we made a majority of the serious decisions around the feature and will get to see it released in some way at some point! That was so amazing for us and it showed us we were truly a serious part of the team. The intern events were crazy – everything from Kooza, to Mariners games, to meeting senior management at Microsoft – and really added that extra value this to internship! Not only did we get to work hard, we got to play hard as well! I got to meet so many different people here, from interns to VPs, who taught me something new everyday. The breadth of knowledge I was exposed to (and hopefully partially retained!) was just outstanding and I am so grateful for all of it.

2. This last week has been a lot of tying up loose ends. I had more lunch/coffee dates then I had all year during this last week! It was great to chat to people and get a better idea of the company through the employees. It also gave me a chance to summarize and share my time and experiences here. Overall I have only good things to say, same as the people who have been here 10+ years. A common theme between everyone I met (again intern to VP) is how they are consistently excited to go to work everyday and truly enjoy what they do. While I haven’t worked at too many other places, I know that can’t be said as consistently by employees at other companies. This last week has shown me truly how much I accomplished in 4 months but also, how much I enjoyed it.

3. I’m going back to school! Not for long though, I have a couple more internships coming up in January. I survived the reviews at Microsoft and in fact they were all pretty awesome.  After interning at a couple other companies, I confidently say the experience at Microsoft will be hard to beat. Will I be back here? Guess we’ll have to wait and see….

Thanks again for reading, it’s been great!

Theresa Palmer

aka. thepal

[Sneak-peek] What’s in this post?

1. People network all the time, and not always in obvious ways – my first real networking experience

2. Networking is personal and incremental – how mentoring is the best kind of networking

3. People you network with should be thought of as models

1. People Network all the time, and not always in obvious ways. Last summer I volunteered with a program that helped welcome new students to UBC. Besides the obvious part of organizing the day and creating a couple of presentations, the program also required each of their squad leaders to have a professor join one of their presentations. We were told to ask a professor who we had direct contact with and would be comfortable presenting with. I decided to ask one of the professors who we spent most of our second year with. I was very nervous asking him to take time out of his summer to participate, but had the program I was volunteering for behind me and the professor didn’t hesitate to agree to help in my presentation.

When I wanted to put my name out there for the Microsoft internship, I had to get a professors recommendation. Since I had already reached out to this professor to help with my volunteering, I felt much more at ease asking for the reference and got around any feeling that I may have been being artificial or superficial. Also, since I had worked with him in class, with projects and now while volunteering as well, this professor had a better idea of how I worked and who I was. He was more than happy to give me the recommendation, and I believe that his word really made a difference in how Microsoft considered my application.

How is this an example of successful and positive networking? I established a professional connection with an important and influential person in my field, who enabled me to advance myself. Not only did he help me in school by spending extra time with our group to improve our projects but he also assisted me during our presentation with the new students.This person knew me by name and (I believe) was genuinely happy to give me his ‘stamp of approval’. It was not a short-term relationship allowing me to get what I wanted. In fact, I never even thought of this teacher as someone I was ‘networking’ with.

2. I have learned from my recent experiences that networking is personal and incremental. For me, networking has often developed from mentoring situations. In fact, one of my new friends said she has many mentors, some who know she looks up to them and turn to in a variety of situations, and some who don’t know she views them as a mentors as she tends to watch from afar. This acknowledgement of mentoring being beneficial is something that I have learnt throughout my time at Microsoft, in face my mentors are people I don’t hesitate to call my friends. Microsoft has official setup some mentors for me throughout this intern program, one in my team and another one through a group I signed up for. I think the best part about it is that my mentors are people whom I don’t hesitate to call my friends.Besides those ‘official’ mentors, I have learnt so much from a variety of people I have come in contact with, and have been actively finding new mentors for myself.

How is this an example of successful and positive networking? Networking relationships should be reciprocal and based upon mutual respect and aid. These mentors who offer me their time and knowledge are helping me through my own personal career path. They remember what it was like when they were first setting out after college, and the people who helped them out along the way. When you present yourself as an eager and enthusiastic person, they are willing to help you out because it reminds them of themselves. Each one of them insists that the mentor-mentee relationship greatly benefits the mentor as well, and I truly hope that there are getting even a fraction of the benefits that I am. I feel more comfortable at work, I know I always have someone to turn to and I am more confident about my presence and position.  When I recognized that these people who I was coming in contact with would also know more people like themselves, I realized they could introduce me to other people they know and influence how those people perceived me as well. While that was not my intention when I originally met these mentors, it naturally developed into a type of networking.

3. I think that people you network with should be thought of as models for your own career and academic paths, not as “career enablers”. They have already faced many of the questions that face students. Unlike you and I, they have already faced long distance careers moves, specialization decisions, etc, and can offer insight into how they approached the problem and why. While the idea of networking seems daunting and at times, rather fake, it’s once you shift away from furthering your career to making yourself a better person that you start reaping the benefits. As my mentor just said, “In the end, it’s all about the network – but concentrate on helping others out first and then you’ll get help when you need it.“

Have an example of successful and positive networking? Let us hear it in the comments!

Thanks to Nick Harper for helping me write this post :)

Luckily for me, I got into a routine no problem. In fact, the core of my work days are so similar, I can lay it out for you right now.

[Sneak-peek] - what’s in this post?

1. My daily routine and how I managed to find it

1. Each day actually starts the night before, when I pack my lunch. While I could just buy lunch each day, I find it easier (and cheaper) to just pack it myself. Helps keep me away from the monster proportions they sell too! I also lay out my gym clothes and pack my work clothes into my gym bag. I usually get into bed around 10 and get sucked into an episode of Law and Order – asleep by 11pm.

Some days I wake up around 5:30am, others at 6:30. I get my puppy ready for her walk, take her around the block, and usually end up playing some game of fetch. We get back in time for my quick breakfast. Getting the exercise I need wasn’t hard to fit into my schedule either, on my early mornings, I am on my bike by 6:10 on the way to the gym for a 6:30 group fitness class. On other days, I’ll head to the gym after work or just take Lily for an extra long walk. Typically, I leave the house around 7:45 at the latest.

I am at work by 8:00 (sometimes 8:15), giving me some time to work before my first meeting at 9:45. I usually have the second half of my breakfast at my desk, while the morning gets going. I noticed early on that we get such a huge amount of emails, so I spend at least 30mins catching up on emails from after I went home the day before. Lately I’ve been checking my mail when I get home to reduce this to around 15mins the next morning.

I was a little worried about the lunch part of my day when I first started – how the caf works, does the team go to lunch together etc etc. My first couple weeks were great, the team does a walk down the halls gathering everyone for lunch in our building’s cafeteria or sometimes a building close by. Recently I’ve been having lunch meetings with friends, information sessions or intern events. Sometimes I check on my puppy at lunch, especially on the longer work days. On days with events though, I make sure I have time to attend. Last week I had a STB Women’s Intern Program luncheon, that included a great speaker and some delicious Mexican food. All the different groups at these lunches make for some great networking events and an easy way to learn more about Microsoft as a company.

I spend the afternoon working on my planned items for the day and usually more meetings. I try to make some progress on my workitems and incorporate any surprises into the plan for the week. I even spent some time working on a small side project, to help our team make our planning more efficient. After fighting with SharePoint for awhile, I proposed an alternative method to our current system, to give us a little more work time and a little less meeting time! I promise to have a post up soon about what I’m actually doing a work, whenever I figure out what I’m actually allow to include!

I leave work anywhere between 4:30 and 6pm to go home and take out my puppy. We usually don’t go for our walk till 8pm when it cools down a little, so first it’s dinner time. I try to make a whole range of meals (ok tonight was just a sandwich) as I have more time for dinner then I would at home. Lily (my puppy) hangs around expecting something to hit the floor, as it always does. Usually I wash the dishes right after I eat cause my place is so small but sometimes I wait till the show/movie I’m watching is over.

After dinner and some down time, it’s a little cooler outside and it’s time for our second walk! Lily and I do the same walk around the block as we do in the morning, but we take a little extra time. There’s a large parking lot right by the long-term hotel I’m staying at, giving her some space to run around. She chases after the pinecones I throw and even brings them back. Once she’s tired out, we head back home.

Now it’s about time for the next day to start. As you can see, it was pretty easy finding a schedule that works for me even after being thrown into a new city. I managed to fit in everything I’m used to, with a couple of extra things as well!

Finally, after I get everything ready for the next day, I get comfortable with Lily, watch some bad TV and write you guys a blog post :)

[Sneak-peek] - what’s in this post?

1. My experience with the application process at Microsoft
2. How this experience fits into my current career plan

1. When I applied for the Microsoft internship program, for my 3rd out of 5 co-op terms, I figured I wouldn’t be successful this time. In fact I knew most people try to get a Microsoft internship on their last work term before graduating hoping to get a full time position offer. I applied early because I wanted to give it a try the first time, get my name out, maybe get a phone interview, and if it didn’t work out well I had 2 more co-op terms and school in between to improve. All this over-planning wasn’t necessary though because after I sent in my application, I met the recruiter and ended up getting a phone interview.

During my phone interview, after talking for a bit, the recruiter asked why I had listed the PM position as my last option. Slightly taken aback, I explained that I didn’t think that position was available for an internship – in fact I didn’t really understand the position anyway. As he gave me his description of the position, I realized that what he was describing I was already doing in my current group projects. As I began to give him examples of what I was doing in school/work and how I thought that matched this position description. After a couple of examples, he suggested I interview for the PM position instead of my original pick of a SDE. I agreed (of course), and began researching this unique position within Microsoft.

Things flew by after that – a trip to Redmond, a full day interview, a trip back home and an internship offer before I got home from the airport. Next thing I know, I am half way through a 4 month internship writing a blog about the whole experience (and in case you haven’t read my other posts, I’m really enjoying it!). Now that I’ve shared the start to my internship, what about yours? Post a comment about your internship experience – good or bad!

2. I’m the type of person that has a plan. Before graduating high school, I knew I would pursue a degree in engineering (was a little foggy on which discipline) and knew I would enroll in the co-op program. I knew I would keep working another job during the school year to ensure I wouldn’t need a student loan.

Based on what I knew, had heard and found out about this industry, I laid out my career plan accordingly. I figured I would start testing software, as this is what I spent my first internship doing. As I start getting better at finding bugs, I would get to start fixing them. After fixing these bugs, I expected to start contributing to the design of the software I had been testing and fixing. After contributing to the design projects, I would begin working with the various stakeholders and other people involved. After having reached higher levels of responsibilities in all aspects of the project, I would expect to have a greater influence over the entire process. At this stage, I would have reached my ideal position. At this position, I get to work with people from different disciplines towards a common goal of our projects, while coordinating cooperation amongst the team members.

I figured that would plan would take a while. 5-10 years was the range I was aiming for. But that whole process doesn’t have to take years. As an entry level PM, you may not have large amounts of responsibility but you are immediately building your leadership and organizational skills. The work that I am doing right now, is what I could see myself doing in my 5-10 year plan.  Pretty cool eh? It’s kind of like someone pushed fast-forward on my next couple of years, and that’s ok with me :)

[Thanks to] my mentor- for the idea to write this post after I accidentally talked about it in our sync up meeting. comments/suggestions from readers – for the idea to change the format to make it a little easier to read!

Now, dear readers, I am thinking about how to write these blog posts. The last post I wrote, put up on Tuesday morning, received over 450 views within the first couple of hours! Considering my first and second posts only had around 20 views each, clearly I started doing something right. Was it because the post was shorter? Was it because I used more exclamation marks?! Was it because I finally got my blog editor to space the paragraphs out properly? What ever it was, I’m trying to do it again so let me know. Next thing to do- figure out how to keep the same amount of views but get at least ONE comment…

Since the last post we have had a couple of Business Platform Division (BPD) events, one was an all-hands event and the other was called the BPD TechFest. Both really showed me how big the division was and how much cool stuff our division can (and is!) doing. In the TechFest, there were a whole room of booths set up with different projects displayed. I was chosen as one of the Intern Judges and a group of us decided which booth received the intern choice award. This award with a foozball head on top since all the interns do is play foozball (apparently). Originally we were supposed to hand it out as well but our division head, Ted Kummert, did it instead (fine by me!).

One of the intern perks I use everyday, which I haven’t mentioned yet, is my bike! As part of my relocation package, MS helped me buy a bike. I use it to bike to work everyday and I even bike to the gym a couple of times a week. I use my bike to do my all my errands although sometimes I put off getting groceries since I need to bike them up a pretty steep hill… . I’ve been pretty good about biking everywhere, even when it is pouring rain. It’s been a great bit of exercise and an excuse to explore the local area, I strongly recommend taking advantage of that perk! Stay tuned for my post on my other favourite perks…

Works been pretty crazy right now, definitely outside the 8-hour-work-day mould. But as my mentor loves to say, working at Microsoft is a lifestyle! I’m even starting to check my email once I get home and have even sent a couple of replies. I feel like I’m starting to fit into that lifestyle which is a great feeling for an intern. Besides working in and around my team I am trying to get involved around Microsoft as well (like the division events).There’s so much to do in this big company, we’ll see how much of this iceberg I get a piece of!

And remember folks, I can see that you are seeing this! Leave a comment would ya - about what I write, what I don’t write or even what I should write. And thanks for stopping by.

The project is moving along and the documentation is coming together nicely. We have another dimension of this project we have to start thinking about now, releasing it! Did you know there are a whole bunch of ways to release a feature? Well there are, and we’re trying to decide which one is best for our project (and our timeline!) That’s taking up most of my desk time right now.

Outside my desk time though, I’ve been doing some pretty cool stuff! Last week there was the Engineering Forum on campus, a bunch of very informative sessions available to full time employees (FTEs) only. You needed to scan your badge and everything! There was a variety of different topics for all discipline too. Went to a total of 4 sessions including a keynote by Bob Muglia – President of Server and Tools Business (STB). One of the sessions I even won a book called the 360 degree leader – and was challenged to rethink developing and managing for the user’s experience. Also attended 2 scenario focused engineering (SFE) sessions, very interesting stuff. If you haven’t heard of Toyota’s ‘just-in-time’ production, I strongly suggest you look it up because that idea can be applied everywhere! They handed out this great little ‘cheat-sheet’ card (which fits nicely on my badge holder) to help keep the process on you. They also talked about how brainstorming is so important. If you find your team is getting stuck, you need to get more brains! Maybe that’s why we have so many meetings…

We had another intern event last week too, a Sounder’s game! I bought a jersey my first week here so I was glad to have a reason to wear it! Traffic was terrible on our way there, luckily I didn’t have to drive! We sat nice and high in the stadium, could see everything which was great. It did start raining a bit though and we weren’t undercover, but it didn’t last for too long. In case you didn’t see the game, we were down 3 goals until like the 88th minute! The Sounders managed to make it 3-2 before the end of the game so even though we lost, it was a great come back!

Also went to BobMu’s intern breakfast, nice and early on a Friday! It was a very confusing trek there, trying to shuttle around before any of the receptionists were around. There was delicious food and a chance to actually talk and ask questions with our division president. Also found out there is a STB Women’s Intern Program, and got a second mentor! Met her for the first time last week and set up our weekly meetings – it’s great to talk to someone else in another building but working through all the same things. It was another difficult trek over to her building, because the driver dropped me at a near-by building instead of the building I needed to go to. Luckily I started walking in the right direction and found it anyways. Plus I discovered her building cafeteria has great sushi!

There’s some cool stuff going on this week, I’ll keep you updated when I get a chance! Hopefully the sun will come back too :) Happy mid-June!

Ok, week two! Well, week two and three actually. So much happened so fast, there was no time for blogging unfortunately. I apologize if this is longer then you were hoping, get comfy!

So week 1 summary: ‘ramp up’ and choosing our project. Now what?

Meetings! Review meetings, daily update meetings, planning meetings… At the beginning, I spent most of my meeting confused and trying to follow along, but eventually all that trying turned into actually getting it! I took notes, jotted down acronyms (there’s a lot of them…) and other terms I didn’t understand and looked them up/asked my mentor after. I hadn’t taken a course in databases yet, so I was behind from the get-go.  My mentor lent me a great database book (A Developer’s Guide to Data Modeling for SQL Server by Eric Johnson and Joshua Jones) which was easy to read and had useful background information. The lingo was sounding more familiar and I was writing fewer things down to look up later. Things were starting to fall into place; I was beginning to feel like this PM thing was possible!

This week was also the first we had work items relating to our project (well, work items at all!) We got to meet with FTOs (feature team owners, in case you were wondering) to hear more about our division and the product we’re creating. I also started working on my main deliverable of my internship – my functional specification! (spec for short). The spec is going to document what our project does and how it does it. It’s kind of an important document and I get to write it! Research starts now…

The team is still great, and still putting up with all my questions! At lunch, someone walks down the hall to get everyone together to make the trek to the cafeteria. There’s a great selection of food there, although I’m a lunch packer myself. And I’m sure you’ve heard of all the free pop, juice and milk that is available. Good news is it’s not only in the cafeteria either, the fridges around the office also hold all you can drink! Believe it or not though, all the carbonated sugar gets a little old after awhile (but the chocolate milk never does!)

Other, non-work related stuff I got done was getting my bank account set-up and applying for a Social Security Number (being from Canada, I didn’t have one already). It felt like I was crossing the border all over again, the strict and scary questions, having to swear what I was saying was the truth etc. Don’t forget to bring ALL of your visa documents when you go to apply for one, they are super strict about what they need to process your application. With my SSN on file, I get to apply for my Microsoft benefits (another perk!)

I had some visitors too, so I got to check some of the touristy things off my list. Went to a Mariners game, watched them break a losing streak and even hit 2 homeruns in a row! Spent more time at Macys (we don’t have those in Canada) and spent a day looking around Pike Place. Having a Starbucks around ever corner is very much like home (although the lack of Tim Hortons is depressing). The rain is still going but that is expected on the west coast, spring never wants to let go. I am still riding my bike to and from work, a good wake up in the morning. Even my little studio is looking a little better, got some decorations set up to make it feel more like home.

Overall, things are turning out great, both at work and outside of work. Almost nearing the end of the first month, and there’s lots to come!

[thepal] Just a quick note, due to technically difficultly setting up this blog as interns have to go through different hoops, this is actually posted just after my first month! The first three posts will be pretty close together, the rest of it will be space out correctly :)

Being an intern at Microsoft is all that, and more.

It is information overload.

It is hard work.

   It is fast paced. Really fast paced.

But most of all it is rewarding. Even though you are only an intern being a part of the team for a short period of time, you are an active member of a team. Your team works together towards a common goal. At times there are interactions with other teams, other divisions or even partners outside of the company. You get exposed to a whole new set of skills school never even hinted to.

Now I am a Program Manager intern, so this will relate to mostly specific PM experiences but it will include experiences as an intern in general. Being that this is posted midway through my second week, I hope that gives you an idea of how big and exciting this has been so far. First week is almost already a blur (partially the reason I started writing this down!) but it was a great start to my 16 weeks here at Microsoft.

Now before beginning the internship, we were given a training plan that would be executed over our time here. After a brief skimming through the plan, it seemed as though the first 3 months would be training and such, and then the fourth month would finally be time for a project. It was apparent very early on, that training plan was not what will actually be happening.

Day 1 was orientation day. Being the excited new intern I was, I followed the email directions exactly and arrived at 8am. Once there, I was told the intern orientation started at 9:30am… An hour and a half later began a whirlwind of a day – consisting of papers, power point presentations and some really cool stuff. At the very end of the day we hopped on our appropriate shuttles (yes – you get shuttled around campus because there really is that many buildings) and got to meet some of the team for the last hour of the day. Only my manager was still in the building by the time I got there and we ended up having an hour and a half conversation trying to cover everything and anything about the team that might help me understand a little more what I would be doing here. At the end of the day I fell asleep so fast I don’t think I even got changed…

The rest of the week consisted of what they called ‘ramp-up’; getting up to speed with being a Microsoft employee, being an intern and being on your particular team. Everyone to answer any questions I had, pointed me towards appropriate resources and was incredibly patient as I sorted through this mass amount of knowledge I was receiving. Another intern started at the same time as I did (we even share an office) and we both went through the same ramp-up period. It became clear quickly that the training plan was not accurate and we would be starting our own project almost immediately. The rest of the week is a blur of meetings, sample documents, expectations and commitments. At the end of the first week, we planned our next two weeks along with the rest of the team now that we had a better understanding of what exactly we were getting ourselves into. As week 2 gets on its way, with even more meetings and documents and expectations, I am even more excited then I was when I received my internship offer. I hope to keep this updated with my weekly adventures, as I work on our project and try to take in as much as Microsoft is sending out.

[thepal] Just a quick note, due to technically difficultly setting up this blog as interns have to go through different hoops, this is actually posted just after my first month! The first three posts will be pretty close together, the rest of it will be space out correctly :)