I spent my 3rd year at my first computer science internship! I worked at SOTI as a product manager. SOTI is a company that provides software to control mobile devices like phones and product managers prioritize which projects the business works on.

Getting Hired

Starting my internship felt like a dream. I was hired 2 weeks before the summer term, which is very late since most interns get hired at least 4 months before they start. I thought I should not be there but was so grateful to be there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6n_Di9_aiE&t=385s
I made a video about my full job hunting process last September.

Working From Home

I worked from home for most of my internship which I was surprised to know since I had never envisioned that for myself. I never thought I would ever have the privilege of working from home. I thought that I would always have to walk into the office every single day, but I am grateful that every day I got to wake up and then go straight to my computer for work.

My work-from-home desk setup!
Listening to lo-fi music and organizing my meeting notes with Notion

I often listen to lo-fi music to work. It is so freeing knowing that I could listen to any music I wanted and that I was not be watched every single second of the work day. Knowing that I have the privilege of working from home made me so happy to go to work. At work, I was responsible for prioritizing software bugs and writing software release notes. My coworkers were awesome! I was often the only girl in meetings, but I still felt proud to be a part of the team.

Going Back To The Office

4 months into my internship it was a requirement to go to the office once a week. I remember how soothing walking through the autumn leaves felt as I went to the office in the fall season. It was so freeing knowing that I did not have to arrive at the office on time either. At my previous job, my manager got very upset when I came to work 10 minutes late once. I thought I was going to be fired for coming late, but it didn’t matter. What I love about working in tech is that the number of hours and the time of day that you work does not matter. What matters is the quality of your work.

The office was usually quite empty. About a quarter of the office seats were filled when I went. I loved going to the office to be more productive because I was more focused when I worked. I usually am able to finish a day's work in 6 hours at the office, while when I am at home I typically work 8-9 hours in a day to finish all of my tasks. The perfect balance is the hybrid model because working from home reduces work burnout allowing me to have those deep work sessions at the office.

Working at the SOTI office!

Balancing Full-Time Work and 2 Courses

As I was working at my co-op placement I also took a french course and a math course. This was exhausting because I was at my computer all day. I would finish work and then get back on to the computer! I sometimes sat for 12 hours a day, but I did learn a lot. Below are a few snippets of a french project I worked on. I love learning french so much. It keeps me connected to my Canadian roots and it is so satisfying to speak the french language. I love how French sounds formal, classy and articulate.

Translation: My 5 challenges in lockdown and how I had improved the situation!
Translation: I also play the piano or the ukulele.

Playing the piano and ukulele is one of my healthiest coping strategies during lockdown when I needed to let my emotions out or work on something that is not related to computer science.

I took statistics and probability as well. As someone who usually enjoys math, I found it hard to enjoy this course because a lot of the concepts were a repetition of a combinatorics course I took last year. Sometimes I found it hard to balance taking two courses and a full-time job but I got an A+ in probability, an A- in french and did not get fired in the end, so I managed it very well. Looking back I would not take 2 courses at the same time as working, I should have only taken one. I do not think that it was worth all of that stress for the extra university credits.

The Final Month of My Internship

My internship was 12 months. I felt very sad to leave SOTI. Working at SOTI has surpassed my expectations. I never thought that I would work at a place where I liked my coworkers, where I was well challenged and knew that I belonged there.

https://videopress.com/v/TuruN0tY?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true
On my last day in April, I took this video in the games room at work. There was a ping-pong table and a bunch of games there.

Goodbye SOTI. Thank you for an experience that I never want to forget and am so lucky to have.