Internship Wrap-up
The end of the Internship is drawing near at VECO. It has been so great working with VECO. They have been so receptive to all that Andrew and I have done for them and it really makes me feel like I was helpful.
On Wednesday, we will work to finish up the material that we promissed to our boss. We also are working on building a list of suggestions on ways of improving usability on the company's new softwear. I never really thought of Canadian english as being different. In working with the software however, it has become apparent that there are suttle differences.
The differences are not in the sentence structure but lay in the verbage. For example, when we asked our user testers to fill in a form with new information that had been previously been filled out. Testers would regularly overlook the "Clear" button. In asking what they were looking for some noted that there was no "Reset" button.
Word choice plays a large part in usability. While I wish I could remember more words that are different, it will be an interesting day of odd-word hunting on Wednesday.
PS: 12 days to Graduation!!!!! Boo yah!
Woopee!
I went in on Friday to my second (third if you count the career fair) with Fastenal down in Tacoma. I think they were impressed because all I have left to do is do a three hour job shadow and then I get to decide whether I want to work with them.
I'm so stoked! Second job interview and I got an offer! I have to figure out salary and when I am going to do the job shadow on Tuesday but all in all I feel really good. Oh yeah, I applied to be an assistant manager in the Woodinville store. If I bust my ass for the next 6-12 months I could be a Manager. One thing that I really like about Fastenal is that there is no limit to how high you can climb within the corporation (I guess CEO is the highest I could go, but you get the point). With 1800 stores worldwide and ~1000 stores slated to be opened in the next 5 years in the states, there is a lot of potential for growth within the company.
I will talk more about this in class tomorrow, but for the time being I want to go finish the last bits of my web portfolio.
Sunday Countdown
Don't know why I am so scared to be done with school. It seems all I ever do is talk about how I am ready to be done. When I sit and think about it, I don't want it to be over.
There is a mountain of work to be completed before school gets out. One would think that with my eagerness to be done I would be motivated to get everything done. However, when I need to go get to work I freeze up. Why would my brain do that to me, between a rock and a hard place.
I finished mailing out all my graduation announcements today save two. Even with those out of the way I still don't feel good about the next two weeks. I need to get a job, I need to get a million and a half articles cited in an excel file, I need to find additional articles to fill the missing gaps in the study I am in. ARG! (just like a pirate)
One step at a time, I need to get to work and here I am writing a blog post – at least it is a homework requirement in a class 
I guess I can talk about my internship. Andrew and I are doing extremely well, I really admire how proficient he is at writing, I will be getting organized sometimes and he will be halfway though a guide. I know he has less class work and other obligations than I do, but I want to do so much more.
I believe that VECO is really impressed by the work that the two of us have done. It is because of our ability to work together well that I want to include him in the business idea that I had. (its a secret, maybe someday my idea will become a reality) I know he will get a job wherever he wants, I like to work with others that have a strong work ethic – I lucked out!
Tomorrow marks the beginning (finally) of our usability testing. All the tests are drawn up. The testers are ready to test, and all I want to do is sleep right now. So on that note, time to get to my other homework.
Cheers,
-G
Senioritus and the people it affects
Senioritus is identifiable by the following symptoms:
Un-motivation
Distraction
Lathargy
Impatience
Last Thursday it became very clear that in many ways I have Senioritus. Normally I try and pay close attention in class, try and participate, and try and help others. However over the last month or so, I have not been doing as good a job as I should.
I took 462 and 497 for two reasons, to get the most out of the technical writing courses that I could and to new technology experience. The classes have done just that. I got an Internship that went beyond expectation, learned new web developement software, learned about using collumns to line up and manage text in a document.
However as the quarter has worn down (now near the nub) I began getting distracted. I know senioritus is not the full reason, but it added an element to my life that I did not need.
I feel ashamed that I was disrespectful while a team was presenting, I like to think I am above being, "the disruptive guy." I know it causes uneeded stress to the teaching staff because they put an exhorbent amount of effort into running class and along come a student that, for lack of a better phase, doesn't give a shit, and disrupts others from learning. (I do give a shit however)
I have so many other things causing extreme amounts of chaos in my life, none of it is good, and the last thing I need is to be pissing off the people that are there trying to help. Right now I need more possitive experiences in my daily life and this is not the way to do it.
I hope that I can recover my relationship with my professor – I feel like I destroyed it. I hate having people mad at me, I like to restore balance. I don't like to worry about feeling ackward going to class.
I guess I will see what it is like when I go in :S
-G
Internship – The User Test
Wow this quarter has blurred by. I still love my internship.
On Wednesday (May 16th) the first batch of user testing is going to occure. Im excited because it will be my first professional testing session, my first time to receive non-acadamia professional feedback, and my first non-food service training session.
On Wednesday we will pick random testers from a list that is being provided by my boss. Two of the most ideal canidates (Document Management) are will only be on their 3rd day on the job at VECO. This means Andrew and I will be training them as well as user testing the manual!
Every time I go into work it is so refreshing to have the change of scenery, I love Western don't get me wrong, but I is a nice change of pace, to be localized somewhere to focus on the task at hand.
I am very happy with how the Manual is shaping up; it looks clean, it reads clean (still some kinks to be worked out), and hopefully it will be understandable to everyone from our Secretary to the Engineers. Tomorrow will be a busy day but I am ready.
Cheers,
-G
Internship Update
So the internship is going along, I spend 5 hours in the office on Monday. This quarter is extremely busy right now, I am having to hold on with all my might to stay close to all my responsibility.
My co-intern and I are in the process of writing the usability test for our subjects tomorrow. The only problem is for the most basic users all they need to do is be able to search, however the search page is really malfunctioning. The search engine does not handle multiple word searches, and specifying search criteria doesn't do anything but bring back negative search results – even when you know the items are there.
Tomorrow will be a long day but I know it will be fruitful in getting this next step completed in the quest to compete our manual sections.
Side from the Internship, class responsibilities are high and I am low on time. Time to get back to work!
Half Way Point
So here I am half way through the term. Half way through the internship. Half way out of my mind. I think I might have taken on too many responsibilities this quarter.
Full-time student (12 credits)
Research Assistant
Internship
Restaurant Server
A given day there is always a ton to do. However, this internship hasn't suffered at all because of my other commitments. I have been working hard with Andrew to finish up the first draft of the manual, and we hope to be finished by next week sometime. Its been hard to make significant headway during the week because we keep experiencing updates to the program that were implemented while we were out of the office. When we come in to work it is not uncommon to see that pages have changed, however what changed is rarely obvious.
We were told by our boss today that we could have four new employees to user test our manual draft. Aside from a few minor errors with the program itself this internship feels great. Our boss will be sending us a list of tasks that we will integrate into the user test questions. I guess some students from my internship class will also be testing with us, which will be nice to get a broader base of feedback.
On Tuesday (4/24) I was at work on a four hour shift and it felt like only one hour. It was great, maybe this means that I should persue this kind of writing more outside of college – I can't wait.
As the weeks go by…
Ever since freshmen year, the quarters seem to go faster and faster as I get older. It is possible that it is because I have lived longer than I had during my first year. For example:
I'm being hopeful in that I set my life expectancy somewhere around the low to mid 80s we will say 85.
Year Age/Life Expectancy
Freshmen year: 18/85 = .21 -> 21% life lived
S. Senior year: 23/85 = .27 -> 27% life lived
Great so I have a percent of the total time that I've been around. A quarter on average is 3 months. (~.25 years)
.25/85 = .3% of total life expectancy
So when we look at what .3% actually looks like compared to age; time really is going faster:
1 Quarter / % of Life Expectancy Used
Freshmen = .003/.21 = .014 or 1.4%
S. Senior = .003/.27 = .011 or 1.1%
1.1 % < 1.4 % -> Quarters during Freshmen year truly were longer than following years.
So, it is apparent that each quarter is really a smaller percent of our overall time lived. The brain sure is a crazy thing, I am sure it knows all this, it just likes to keep to itself.
This feeling of time moving faster relates to everything! Spring break during elementary school seemed to last ages, whereas 2005 Spring break was over before it started. (thanks work!)
Interesting as it may be, I think it is time to pay more attention to class.
Initial Internship Observations
So far, so good. This internship at VECO is going great. Any request that has been proposed to management has been met by the next time I get into the office. Everyone on site is extremely happy to have interns helping out. My co-intern is really cool and we have a lot in common so working together is really easy.
One of the first big problems that was encountered was determining what level of security we wanted to write the manual at. At first the decision was made to write it at the administrator level, that way all sections would be covered and it would be easy to remove sections that did not apply at the generic user level. Eventually we decided that doing this would not work the way we wanted and would make our job far more difficult. Therefore we created a dummy account and set the new user’s settings to the lowest level. Default Joe!
Next week we will be contacting the programmer of the site we are working on. Should prove interesting.
Senior Year and Sinus Congestion
So the last quarter of my last year in college is finally in motion. It is spring mind you. So why the sinus congestion?! I don't have allergies and yet lung slugs continue to take residence in the ol' respiratory system.
School is hard enough as is; internship, class, research assistantship, work, taking away from free time. People that want to spend time with me get pushed to the backburner (set on 3). The work continues to pile up, those waiting for my time interact less and less. WHY? Cause I cant breath right!
Stupid, stupid sinuses, why do you torment me so – it's the spring!
