How has this experience (Internship) made you consider your college path that will ultimately lead to your career?
I have been considering how this internship has changed my view on what I will do in college. I have talked to many of the workers who were past interns and they told me about their experiences with physics in college and how its hard, but if you make sure you study it isn't too much of a hassle. I of course know that hard studying comes out with good results, but I'm just concerned about the math level. There is a lot of math in college physics and I'm not ready yet to be able to understand something that needs multiple layer of knowledge to understand.(ex. trigonometry and calculous) I am currently still very interested in chemistry, but If I in college I was still interested in engineering I could consider chemical engineering. From one of the Atec workers, I learned that chemical engineering is the best of both worlds, and through research I found that chemical engineers have a vast amount of opportunities for employment. There are openings for chemical engineers in things like energy, oil and gas, food drink, plastics, water treatment, pharmaceuticals and toiletries. It's not like all of these sound appealing to me, but it surprises me how many opportunities there are. I will need to take Palomar classes in math regardless if I want to become an engineer or not, but the thought of pursuing an engineering career is interesting to me. I'll be commenting on Micah and Matthew Mau's blogposts.
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How did you measure the success of the work you did while you were an intern? What did you learn from this?
I knew I was successful in my internship when I learned something and was able to apply myself to it or do something valuable with that knowledge. This ranges form knowledge marked down in notes for further use, a mini lesson that I will be able to use when calculating the input force of a company tool, or when observing a mechanical test that goes as planned. I learned what it is like to be in a lab formatted job, where success is achieved through predicted results. If I was testing an implant I would need to know how it would break with an amount of pullout force. How did you make a meaningful contribution to your workplace? I implemented myself into the workplace at first doing lots of work around the office. For my first week I scanned and filed about a whole shelf full of of thick binders full of old company parts into a digital format. This was busy work, but I was really doing a favor for all of the engineers, because now they didn't have to flip through binders and could just look on a document with file links. I always try to shadow my mentor or one of the engineers when they are dong active work, always trying to ask questions and take notes. Whenever I need help on one of my calculations I can simply just ask anyone who knows about physics, which is about everyone in my office room. How was your work as an intern meaningful to your education? The work I've been doing is very interesting, but at first I wasn't satisfied with it. I didn't know that the work I would be doing was going to be so physics based, but after learning more about it and practicing with the company tools I've started to find an interest in engineering. I'm not sure if this will be something I want to continue in college, but this experience will definitely benefit me in future physics classes. I will have physics next year and most likely have them throughout college. How might internship influence the direction of your life? I think the opportunity to learn what working as an design engineer is very valuable when deciding what I want to do in college. Engineering is intriguing to me, especially after learning about chemical engineering, which is a mixture of my favorite topic chemistry and elements of engineering. Usually chemical engineers work in pharmaceutical companies, but the job range is almost limitless with an expansive amount of job opportunities in many different careers. How did your view of life beyond high school change or develop during your time as an intern? I learned that if you have a healthy workspace, life after high school can be quite similar, except you are an adult with responsibilities. Many of the engineers around the office are probably just as playful as they were in high school, but they still do their work well when collaborating. After experiencing this I think that as soon as you are not enjoying what you do life after high school starts to have a bland taste. As long as I can do something that brings joy to me, I will be fine moving on past high school.
This is the intern workspace. I occasionally come in here to talk and collaborate with the other interns.
I'll be commenting on Jeremy's and Matthew Mau's blogs. How have you advocated for yourself during your internship, or seen advocacy demonstrated in other situations? Are you following the advice in "How to be an intern everyone remembers"? If so, how is it working out? If not, what are you going to start doing?
I feel like I have been a good intern, in the sense that I have asked many questions, when there is a need, and constantly take notes on what I need to learn or improve on. On my first day I was struck with the vast realization that I didn't have the skills required to be successful in my internship. I took note of all of the physics topics and academic skills involved in my work and made a study plan to begin working on them at home. One of the engineers who originally started off as an intern at Atec came up to me and gave me some tips on how to grab attention and be an "intern they'll remember." I work independently sometimes, but when observing my mentor or one of the engineers, I always make sure they know I'm there. For my internship project my mentor decided that I should learn to calculate the force applied to a lever tool from the results of a test. He had the sales team apply as much pressure on the lever tool and maximize their final output force. The purpose of the tool is to multiply the amount of input force applied and make the output force greater. In the end I will be calculating all of the sales team's forces and organizing them.
To calculate this I will need to make as accurate of a force diagram as possible and utilize torque to find the initial force put in to receive the noted amount of output force. The amount of initial force will be tricky to calculate, but I have my mentor and an engineer to help me, as well as my brother who has taken college physics classes. I interviewed my mentor Alex Turner who has a PhD in mechanical engineering and acts as the Biomechanical testing lad director.
What does your job title entail? He tests Atec's products for strength and durability and tries to make sure that they all meet FDA requirements. This includes screws and a large assortments of spine implants. How did you end up working at your current job? He had an interest in medicine because his father was an orthopedic surgeon, but he was more interested in the none patient side of the business. An industry line of work was more appealing, rather than academia based work so he pursued becoming a biomedical engineer. What skills and training are necessary for your position?
The way he explained this to me seemed very resolute, as if he had thought about it before. He said that when you make products that help ease people's suffering it really gives a purpose to the things that you do. The products that Atec makes are usually used by people with chronic back pain or severe back spinal diseases. To alleviate their suffering is quite satisfying. He also added that the office he works in in a particularly bright and energetic place to work in and I can back that up. If I were to start working here today what is the first thing I would need to know? The first thing I would need to know is the cultural dynamic around the office. The engineers, while they are chatty and boisterous get work done and they do it well. Reflection What questions do you have about your internship?
At my internship I've done a lot of observing/note taking and filing papers. I really think that there isn't anything similar to the things I do at school, and to say it is would be stretching the truth. What has happened that is worth telling us about? Today we performed a test on the ossio screw and cement augmented screws in osteoporosis mimicking foam. The osteoporosis mimicking foam is supposed to represent the inner bone structure of someone who struggles with osteoporosis. The ossio screw is a screw that when drilled in expands at the tip. The cement augmented screw is a screw with holes in it. A special cement is injected into the screw and travels into the bone structure creating a solid and hard to move screw. We were trying to prove that the ossio screw is a good competitor with the cement screw, but the bone structure of an osteoporosis patient is to brittle for the ossio screw, making the cement screw ideal. What new skills are you developing for your internship? Since my internship is a primarily mechanical engineering internship, I need to learn more about physics. I have been working on force diagrams this whole week and I think the most important subject to work on is torque, the force of turning an object. How are you getting to your internship? I am driving to my internship. It's about a seven minute drive and it is so brief. I meant to post this blog yesterday, but my mentor didn't have enough time to do an interview. I wasn't sure what I'd expect. I sort of thought up some science fiction-like lab where I would be observing some crazy scientist whacking away at spinal implants, but it was much more practical. I an the intern to a Biomechanics tester, but there is much more mechanics than bio. The products that we test are spine implants that are used to help people with back pain due to diseases and chronic conditions. The thing that strikes me most about my workplace is that even though it is a workspace with cubicles and many different workspace teams, (marketing, engineers/design, biomechanics testing, finance) they seem to be very much a community, in the sense that everyone seems to know and like each other. This is one of the friendliest workspaces I've been in, and although they are often playful they fire straight as a bullet when it comes to their work. My colloquies that I work with closely are very patient. I was brought into an engineering internship, even though my focus was more Bio/Chem, and they have tried to the greatest extent to explain and give me the means to understand their work. I will try my hardest to learn as much as a can, but besides torque and some basic calculous, I don't believe I'll be able to grasp the subjects that are needed for my internship in time. Although the job that I'm currently doing isn't what I'd originally expected, I am still enthusiastic none the less. I have been observing what my mentor and his assistant have been working on, which is testing screws and spinal surgical implants to see if they break, and it is hard to get anything valuable through it except for the concepts. I don't understand the units of measurements or physics equations applied to be able to fully understand what they do, but I still try. However, my current project is digitally filing two shelves full of documentation and schematics into a excel spread sheet. I have been doing about four hours of scanning on my first day, I have to say it wasn't even that bad, and I wasn't even listening to music. It was definitely busy work, but is numbed my brain. That probably isn't a good thing. I am excited to start studying so that I am eventually able to be more involved in what my mentor's assistant is trying to explain to me, but I'm also not sure what I'd be able to do as my final project. I'll need to get as involved as possible and since I don't think my teachers would be happy if all I did my whole three week internship was file about 150 lbs of binders, but I'll try and make it work out. There are seriously a lot of binders to be scanned and digitally filed. I'm also pretty sure that I'm the fastest filer alive so we'll see how this turns out.
From what I've learned it is really hard to find an internship in the chemistry/bio tech field. I have emailed 6 companies through their website and I have had networking contacts with about 5, none giving fruitful replies. However frustrating it may be, I understand that having an under 18 student in a lab is a large liability and takes lots of effort. I was put in contact with a Doctor Pearn at UCSD's medical research center who is an anesthesiologist. I was able to get in contact with him because of some seniors who had also had an internship with him, but after multiple phone calls and a confirmation that I would be able to intern with him, I believe he cut all contact with me. I say believe because I had a phone call with him where he told me to send the contract to him and after dong this I wasn't able to get in contact with him at all. He stopped replying to texts, emails, and phone calls. On career day me and my partner Micah, who was also supposed to intern with the same doctor, went to the UCSD medical center to see if we could get in contact with him. We called his cellphone number and reached his receptionist. We asked if we could be put in contact with Dr. Pearn, but she said he was unavailable. I had no choice, but to draw the conclusion that he no longer was able to give us an impactful internship. Although career day wasn't as successful as I wanted it to be, in the past week I have been put into contact with BioTech company called ATEC. I have emailed their CEO and he is trying his hardest to see if there is a place available for me to get a substantial learning experience. He told me that the chances of being able to intern in his company are very hopeful, and I am excited to receive news beck form him. I tried to make the best out of my career day because ATEC wasn't ready to give me any tours of their facility, and I was still pushed towards going to my internship even though I didn't have one secured. What else could I have done. |