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.
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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. |