I've decided to just post my weekly impressions about life at Samsung so far since I think a lot of future exchange students/interns will be curious about this part. They just keep getting shorter and shorter though, sorry about that. It really is just 9-hour work shifts for 6 weeks.
( read weeks 4-6 here: http://gloomy-home.blogspot.kr/2013/08/samsung-internship-last-3-weeks.html )
( read weeks 4-6 here: http://gloomy-home.blogspot.kr/2013/08/samsung-internship-last-3-weeks.html )
WEEK 1
The internship is going pretty well! Here's a summary about my impressions of it so far:
Dorm Related: So far it's been almost a week after we've moved into our dorms. Security is really tight, and since the girls are dorming on-campus, we are not allowed to get WiFi/internet due to security/confidentiality. Also all of our cameras have been sealed/taped over for the same reasons, so I don't think I can get much pictures unless you'd like to see pictures of my dorm room (or maybe when I'm out vacationing and decidedly not internship-related). The guy dorms are really far away from the girl dorms too, about a 30 minute walk. However, the guys are not on campus, so they've found a way to get WiFi using 3G and phone companies. Joy and I are sharing a room, very much like a dorm at SKKU, or like a dorm in Jester. We have community baths and toilets, and also a gym in the basement, a public computer lab, a TV/DVD room, a community kitchen, and several other public facilities that are open to the girls who are dorming. From what I heard from the guys, they have an apartment-styled room instead of a dormitory-styled room. There are three people per apartment, and they each have their own fairly large room (well, one of the rooms is rather small apparently, but that's because it has its own private bathroom.) They have a TV and a huge living/lounge room, as well as a kitchenette (I think.) I felt kind of cheated since they each got to have their own rooms, but I can't complain about free housing since apparently the HR department is paying 30,000KRW a month for each of us.
Work Related: We all got Samsung laptops (in fact, everything here is proudly labelled Samsung, like our TV (which only has 5 channels), and our A/C) to use at work, but we'll have to return them after the semester is over (unfortunately). We also all got put into seperate divisions: Windter and I are in Logic T/D, Joy and Glen are in Software Research & Development, and both Ryan and Noah are in LSI. There's 15 exchange students in total on this program. Since we were put into different departments, we all got treated differently on the first day. Windter, I, and two other exhange students also on Logic T/D got a morning orientation on Monday in the form of lectures, had lunch and tea, and then were introduced to our respective teams that we would be working with. From what I've heard, Glen and Joy were introduced to their teams immediately and got to work. Ryan and Noah are taking a week-long orientation with the other Korean interns in LSI that is composed of many Korean lectures and interviews before they can be placed into their respective teams or positions. Since there are two campuses (much like SKKU), Windter and I have to take a bus (seperately) since our office is at the other campus Hwaseong. We are expected to work from 8-5pm every day from Monday to Friday, and this time is recorded from when we swipe in with our IDs to use the elevator to go to our workspace. We are provided with 3 meal tickets a day to spend on whatever we want, and there's around 5 choices for meal sets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Luckily for us, the Logic T/D building is right next to a cafeteria.My team is very friendly to me, if a bit shy. I can't help but think they really want exchange students to help people practice their English skills. We eat lunch together, and my supervisor has outlined vaguely about what I should finish/work on for the internship presentation we have to give at the end of week 6. However, HR seems to have informed him lately on what he needed to do (like make a schedule for me) and he is trying to gague my skills to see what work I can do that will both contribute to the team as well as provide a worthwhile experience for me. He seems really intent on making sure my experience at Samsung is educational (by having me learn solid state devices even though I haven't taken that class yet, or will not need to) and that I can take something out of my internship here. To do this, I give him daily reports at the end of the day telling him what I did for work, and he sits down with me the day after to outline a plan for that day or the next. I would talk about what I'm working on, but it's also confidential information so I'm just mentioning how work is so far. Along with that, HR had also "assigned" an intern buddy for me so I wouldn't have to go to work alone. I'm actually really thankful for this, because she's so nice and we're helping each other learn each other's languages more fluently in an effort to communicate with each other.Overall though, I just feel plain exhausted working 8-hour days haha. I basically wake up at 6AM, get ready, meet my Korean intern friend to take the bus together at 7AM, arrive on the other campus at around 7:15AM, eat breakfast and then check into work at 7:45. I work or study the material I am supposed to study, and then clock out at 5PM, eat at the cafeteria at 5:20PM, and then go home to shower, check my mail/messages, and then collapse into bed. It feels like high school again, in a way. I got too used to flexible hours in college life, like going back to my dorm immediately after a class to take a power nap before going to another class haha, so maybe this will help me regulate my sleeping schedule. I feel kind of sad though, that I don't get to see Glen, Noah, or Ryan that much. Windter I see rather rarely even though we work in the same building as well, since the last bus to his dorm leaves at 5:30PM and he can't afford to eat dinner at the company cafeteria.I wish our dorms were closer so we could hang out more. Also, since everything on campus is kind of restrictive and monitored, I do feel trapped in a sense. Transporation includes company shuttle buses, but once you go somewhere, taxi seems the only way to get back. I cannot just get on a subway and go to Seoul and have a definite idea about how I will get home. I also have no idea where I am spatially compared to Suwon or Seoul, or anything else familiar.
WEEK 2
Work is passing by quickly now that I have a concrete set of tasks. My mentor sets me tasks to do, and once I finish them (I have to send daily reports of what I've completed that day to him), he kind of adds onto them, so everything builds up and I can't finish anything. It also keeps me busy, which is great for 9-hour shifts. Lunch is always a team-affair, where the whole team gets up to go eat at 11:30 like clockwork. Even though we have an hour set aside for lunch, we usually always seem to get back into the office at 12:00. Koreans seem to eat really quickly. Sometimes, before we go back in, we play a Russian Roulette sort of game with a phone app to see who has to pay for all the drinks for the whole team. Food like like dorm food, which is kind of boring, but there's always an option of just fruit which pleases me, since I felt like I was lacking a lot of fruit when I was going to school.
Generally, it's a bit harder to get around, since there's no subway easily available. There are shuttle buses that go to certain places, but it's kind of hard to read the bus schedule. Otherwise, getting around places are long walks. It kind of discourages me from eating breakfast and lunch on the weekends haha since the cafeterias are so far away from the women's dormitory. It's also rainy season (monsoons in the south I think) so everyday is kind of rainy. The companies have umbrellas set out at every security checkpoint and building though, that you can carry around campus and deposit when you need to.
WEEK 3
I'm getting used to the 8-5PM workdays and commuting to work by bus. I'm still not used to people. So this week, I pretty much just continued on with my daily tasks. However, my boss surprised me today by telling me I had a presentation for the rest of my team (not at all related to the presentation I'm supposed to give at the end of the internship for the Exchange Student Internship Program) about my progress and work so far. I'm expecting critique and suggestions to help improve on my project. However, I'm actually pretty happy that I'm learning new things and being somewhat helpful to my team. I've ran out of things to talk about pretty much! Everything's just kind of settled into a pattern of sorts. It's still really sad that it's hard to all hang out together lately. Oh well, we're halfway through with the internship! Here's to another successful 3 weeks!
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Reading these over again makes me want to point out that we did figure out where the bus stops were to take us back to campus! There's an app you can get for your phone that tells you about the bus schedule. Too bad I don't have WiFi around here, so I just depend on Noah, Windter, or Ryan for bus times.
