This past week has gone by way faster than I thought it would. The days felt like several days packed into one. I feel like I did a lot a things in a short amount of time. My internship started on Tuesday at Vencon Research. It is about a 50 minute commute to get to the office from the hotel. This is the first time I have had a job like this. Also the first time I have had to commute for longer than 15 minutes to work. It is different for me to have to wake up early in the morning and get ready for work. I am used to going to my job at a gymnastics place where I can wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants. It took some getting used to to be able to be up, ready, and out the door by 9am. This is where I think I will struggle most with managing my time. It was also difficult to not get tired throughout the day. As I said before, I am not used to having a job like this. Being at a computer and sitting in on meetings is not exactly entertaining and motivating to not get tired. I have realized I need to break my day into more pieces and not just focus on one thing for too long.
On Tuesday for the start of my internship, when I arrived to the office I met the employees and got a tour of the office floor. There was a brief overview of the company given to me before I sat with my supervisor to heard about my department. I am apart of the data automation team, so I was being told the ins and outs of the work to be done. There was a lot of information to take in. I got a general idea of what is done. I got my computer set up and then the team was off to lunch. The team took me to a restaurant to celebrate the start of my internship. I got to learn more about them on a personal level. Surprisingly, no one in my team is from Germany. After lunch everyone showed me what they are working on and what they are responsible to do.
On Wednesday I sat in on meetings for two and a half hours. The meetings were only supposed to be 20 minutes each but the five of them went for about 30 minutes each. I thought the Germans were very strict on timing but I guess not here. After the meetings the day was pretty much half way done so I went to lunch. Once I was back from lunch, there was not much to do so one of the team members went over what was talked about in the meetings.
On Thursday my day started off by seeing what the data integrity team does. This was only supposed to be an hour and ended up being and hour and a half. Once again, not very good timing. After lunch I hung out with one of the members of the data automation team and was watching what he was doing. He was explaining stuff to me as he went along so it was helpful. I feel like I was learning something.
On Friday I sat in with one of the heads of the Business Development team. The meeting took up the whole morning and an hour after lunch. It made the day go by really fast because I had things to engage in. After the last meeting, I sat with my team again to shadow them to see what they are doing.
Overall, I have not had conflicts with time management yet. I have not had my own tasks to do. It is more so like I am shadowing the other members of my team. I’m sure at some point I will have my own tasks. Based off of what I have seen from the departments so far, there is not a strict time frame. It seems to me that the team and the company values work that is done well rather than work that is done fast. I will make sure to ask my supervisor when the work should be done by. I will also ask for extensions when needed or give him a heads up if I am not done with the work yet. I know he expects good work out of me, and he has expressed that timing is not an issue. His biggest thing with time management is trying to fit in me learning as much as I can over an 8 weak span of time.