Google Student Blog: Diary of a Summer Intern

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Diary of a Summer Intern

June 25, 2010

Atima Lui (BOLD Intern) writes about her first few weeks and more as she continues to blog for the Diary of a Summer Intern series!

Hello again, everyone!

The past two weeks have really flown by! I have been incredibly busy, and I’m glad it’s time to update you all once again on what has been happening as I have been working for Google here in the Bay Area.

I have been settling into my new team and my work at the office, and I think it is safe to say that the BOLD internship program matched me with one of the coolest departments in the company. As I mentioned in my first blog post, my team is called the Creative Program Producers, and they launch these really awesome programs on YouTube every quarter. Not too long ago, my manager Josh and his partner Zoe were really the only Creative Program Producers at YouTube. Today, their team has grown to include Tina, a brand new Creative Program Producer; Tiffany, a Web Project Manager; Tony, my fellow BOLD intern; and me! It’s really great because Tina, Tiffany, Tony, and I are all pretty new to the team, so it’s as if the Creative Program Producers are all learning the ropes together. Furthermore, Tony and I are really getting the opportunity to make an impact and help establish this new team and its work-flow at YouTube. If you want to see an example of the programs my team puts together, check out the YouTube Dance Studio, which launched soon after my arrival.

So as you probably already know, Google can be a pretty fun place to work. I thought I would tell you all about the scooters and the foam darts we have at YouTube, but that didn’t seem all that notable as compared to the printers! Sure, printers aren’t usually considered “fun” things, but at YouTube they have managed to incorporate them into the Googley culture by giving them the funniest names. All of them are named after rappers. For example, the closest printer to my desk is named after RZA. Other printers are namesakes of the rappers Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Methodman, and Bubba Sparxxx. Whenever I have to print something, I always get a nice chuckle from the printer names.

Something else that has been a lot of fun these past two weeks has been the amount of traveling I have done! As I mentioned, my team is located in San Bruno, California, so I spend a lot of time there. At the same time, I spend my Fridays with the other BOLD interns on Google’s Main Campus in Mountain View, California. Just recently, I also had the opportunity to work from the Google San Francisco office with my team as well. I had never been there before, and the views of the bay and the Bay Bridge from the office were absolutely breathtaking! Also, a cool fact about the office there is that it is right above the office space for the United States Secret Service. Crazy!

In addition to being a lot of fun, YouTube is a great place to develop both professionally and personally. During my first full week at YouTube, the Director of Media and Operations in the Americas, Eileen Naughton, gave a career advice talk open to all YouTube employees. She is located in New York, but I was able to video conference in to the talk along with YouTube-ers in other offices around the country. Eileen gave us some really great pointers in order to develop into better Googlers. During the question and answer session of her talk, someone asked her about what she thought her biggest duties were as the Director of Media and Operations in the Americas. Her response was that she saw her foremost responsibility as to “develop, train, and find the next generation of leaders.” I was very surprised and impressed by her answer. Sure, I have known Google to be dedicated to the ongoing development of their employees, but to hear Eileen say that this was her greatest responsibility was very impactful. Furthermore, the talk she gave, including the Q&A, lasted over an hour! I left the event more impressed than ever by YouTube’s commitment to employee personal development, and by Eileen’s willingness to take so much time out of her busy schedule to talk with us.

As if attending great talks and being on one of the most awesome teams at YouTube were not enough excitement for my first 2 weeks at Google, I was fortunate enough to locate one of the coolest pieces of YouTube swag ever. Swag are cool momentos with the Google or YouTube logos on them. Examples include backpacks, t-shirts, pens, cups, etc. Well, I am now the PROUD owner of a YouTube Snuggie! I have never been so pumped to own a blanket in my life. Haha!

That’s all for now. Until later!

Atima

Atima on her Google Bike!

Atima's YouTube Snuggie

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