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US College: Steve's Summer Internship

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Summer sure has flown by; it feels like just yesterday we introduced you to our interns—and now it’s already time to say bye to them. We caught up with Steve before he left to get his take on his summer.

"I can’t believe that I am writing my last blog post of my summer internship at Intel. In just two and a half weeks I’ll be back in school studying and working on assignments for my last year of my MBA program. I am excited to apply what I have learned on this internship to my school work and future employment opportunities. My summer internship with Intel has been a key part of my academic learning and career development.

My division (US College Staffing) recently sent out a survey to all 700+ interns at Intel and asked for feedback on their experience. 98 percent of all interns said that their overall experience was positive and 99 percent of all interns said that they would return to Intel if offered a full time position (or an additional internship in the case of some students). I obviously fall within the 98 percent of interns who had a positive experience as an intern at Intel. As I reflect on the last three months I recognize that many people gave a strong effort into making my internship a success. I can’t even begin to thank my manager and teammates who went the extra mile in helping me with my projects and helping me feel welcome.

A few highlights of my internship include:

1) my informational interviews/one on one meetings with employees from various divisions of Intel HR

2) the opportunity to present my findings to key stakeholders in our organization and receive valuable feedback

3) networking and intern activities that helped me make new friends and improve my Intel business acumen.

First, my informational interviews were a major highlight of my internship because I was able to ask people for career advice and learn about their experience as an Intel employee. Everyone I spoke with was more than willing to share their advice about the company, even when they had busy schedules. I asked many questions such as: “What areas in HR have you worked in (background at Intel)?”, “What would you consider to be the top skills for an Intel employee to have?”, and “What advice would you have for a graduating MBA as far as where to work/what to look for in a company?” I was impressed by how sincere people were about giving advice to me. I took careful notes and just ate up all the info they gave me. The interviews served to strengthen my knowledge of the company and add to my excitement for what opportunities are available here.

Second, the chance to present my findings to key stakeholders was an exciting part of my internship and an excellent growth opportunity. When researching Intel before interning here I quickly learned that Intel is a data-driven, analytical company. You can’t just tell a story, you have to have numbers and research that can back up the claims. I found that by spending lots of time researching the topics for my project on metrics I was able to add legitimacy to what I said by pointing to the industry data as a standard. I found the leadership on my team to be detail-oriented and conscientious about each point I would bring up, but they listened and considered new things, even if they were skeptical at first. I saw that once these stakeholders agreed with the point, they were committed to making things work and did not hold onto past reservations that had been resolved. That has been a key element in pushing my project forward in a successful way.

Third, Intel does an excellent job at hosting frequent networking get-togethers and social events. I went to a “tech talk” with a component design engineer who had written a book on microprocessor design and he taught us about Intel’s history and chip design in a way that I could understand (for the most part). I also went to an ice cream social with the other interns at our site, an intern game show event where we learned about Intel’s history and different business groups, and a career fair where we could network with managers from various Intel groups. My division had a quarterly social activity where we went bowling (I got the second highest score), and we also had a picnic to celebrate Intel’s best quarter ever. I can’t emphasize enough what a huge impact the networking events had on my internship experience.

Thanks for letting me share some of the highlights of my summer internship with Intel!"

Thank you Steve for sharing your summer experience on the blog! We wish you the best of luck in the future!