Internship Interview

On October 1, 2018, I had an interview with a company (who will not be named here) about an engineering internship for the summer of 2018. This was my first real job interview, and I was admittedly a little nervous for it. The interview lasted about 20-30 minutes. They asked me a lot of questions about how I approach and solve problems, which are traits that most determine who they choose for internships. I talked a lot about both my Spring 2018 FEH Robot Project and summer 2018 internship at SanCasT, since those were my two main engineering experiences at the time. I talked about how I worked with my robot team and how we resolved conflicts within our group. The interviewers asked about a time I went above and beyond on a project and I discussed how I would put in long hours in Robot open lab to try and stay a week ahead of the competition. I also talked about my sand production project at SanCasT and how I was able to do that project in a fairly open-ended way with minimal guidance from my supervisors. I discussed how I used statistical software when analyzing my sand data and how my work was able to make noticeable difference in the production process. I believe the interview went moderately well and was definitely better than any interview I had back in high school for scholarships or college admissions. I think skills I learned from the Honors Collegium and other groups helped me become more comfortable communicating with potential employers and talking about myself. As an introvert, I sometimes have difficulty doing those things, but my professional development activities and clubs helped me become more comfortable. I ended up not getting the internship, but the experience was still an excellent learning tool and gave me a chance to apply skills I had worked on through organizations I had been part of.

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