My Experience as an Engineering Intern

While I've been in the process of moving back in to school this week and getting acclimated to dorm-life again, I have been doing quite a bit of reflecting on my summer internship. It's kind of surreal to think that the last time I spoke about this experience on the blog I was just finishing up my first week, and now I can actually say that I have successfully completed an entire summer as an engineering intern.

Here's a little reflection on my 12-week-long internship, and what it felt like to be a real working engineer:

#STEMBabes - Advice From an Incoming CS Freshman

Hi, and welcome back to the #STEMBabes series!

(If you haven't read my introductory post to this series, please click over and read it now!)

While I have taken quite a long break from this series (and my blog for that matter, but we'll get to that another time!), #STEMBabes is something I am really passionate about. Each month, I will be featuring a woman doing cool things in her own STEM-related field in the hopes that they will be able to answer any questions you might have about navigating the world of science, technology, mathematics, and engineering as a female. There are so many girls succeeding and truly making a difference in their respective industries, and I hope getting to know some of them better will help/inspire/motivate girls out there who are getting ready to embark on a similar path.

This month, my dear friend Stephanie Almeida will be providing some tips on starting college as a female STEM major - this fall she will be starting college herself, and I think she dropped some serious bits of wisdom in this post.

I hope you enjoy Steph's post on this subject - I know I did! 

The Awkward Girl's Guide to Networking

As a self-proclaimed awkward person and a newbie in the professional world, networking is definitely not my cup of tea. Even though I do consider myself to be a people person, talking to people in order to develop connections and "build my professional brand" can feel difficult - after all, I find talking to people in general exhausting, even more so when I have to introduce myself.

Still, it is a valuable skill and fairly necessary in today's day and age; the saying "It's not what you know, but who you know" is a true one, even if it doesn't feel honest sometimes. Still, as much as I hate to say it, networking has enabled me to really develop meaningful conversations with great people, and I have gotten some of the best advice from sitting down for a one-on-one, even if I was terrified to start.

Although networking is not my favorite thing in the world, over the past two years I've acquired a little bit of knowledge from peers and mentors on the importance of networking and how to make it successful in spite of my awkward tendencies. I'm here to drop that knowledge on you friends, and I hope you'll share some of your tips & tricks in the comments too - us awkward people have to stick together!!!

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when navigating the scary sea that is networking: