Intense Interview Experience.

I think I had mentioned this before, but if not, I had a second round interview with a manufacturing company, Eaton, for an internship this summer. It was the best interview experience I have ever had, and it will probably remain that way for a long while. The company flew all of the potential new interns into Pittsburgh for an overnight stay at a gorgeous hotel, and paid for all of it as well! The first night consisted of dinner with the interviewers and getting to meet some of the employees who worked at the local site, and they were all incredible. I had never felt more comfortable talking to a whole bunch of that I've never met while knowing that I'm being observed as an intern candidate. After the dinner event, a couple of us interns who got to know each other a little bit ended up hanging out in one of the hotel rooms, just talking about school and engineering classes and such. It was really awesome hearing about the engineering programs and opportunities at other schools.

The next morning we had a presentation about the company that led into our one-on-one interviews with the employees. I was a little nervous for my first interview, but after a little while of talking about my resume and life experience, I felt a lot better. And with that, my second interview went by in a breeze, and I wasn't even nervous at all. It did help that my second interviewer was one of my FAVORITE employees that I had met there, and I felt like I made a great connection with him. There was a little break after that which led into lunch with the student co-ops at the facility cafeteria. They had so much to say about their experiences with their internship opportunities, what they liked and disliked about the company, etc. I thought it was really beneficial to us candidates to hear about those kinds of things through students who are more similar to us and are going through the same type of situations than the full-time employees.

After lunch, though, was the big part. When accepting our offers for the second round interviews two weeks before, we were informed that we were required to make a short presentation about our recent contribution to a project. Shouldn't be too hard right? Engineers do projects ALL THE TIME in classes and with research and other various internships. But me? I chose something much different. I presented on my engineering sorority and what I have done as a member to start a new chapter on campus. Because I am so passionate about Phi Rho, it really encouraged me to make a great presentation, and I think I did pretty well overall! I stumbled over my words a little bit, talked to fast, and forgot to mention a few minor details, but the group of interviewers I presented to seemed to be really impressed.

And they must have liked me because I was extended an offer to intern with the company this summer! I was so excited because I've never had an internship before, and I truly enjoyed the interview process as a whole. I'm currently working out all of the logistics based on my location, but I'll talk about that a little later! :]

Don't stop me now, I'm having such a good time.

Here's a few quick updates on how my past week went:

You know how I said I wasn't going to play Humans Vs. Zombies? Yeah, that failed. My friend offered me his ID because he also didn't have enough time to play, so I just acted as him all week. I never really got to "play" myself, like for the missions or going "hunting", but I wore my bandana in a zombie fashion proudly so to scare all the humans I encountered while walking to class. That's probably one of the funniest parts of the game, is seeing the instantaneous fear on a human's face when they realize they have the potential to get tagged. :p But anyway, congratulations to the zombie horde for winning the game this year! It didn't seem like they were going to pull it through since their numbers increased so slowly from the beginning, but a couple of the major human players got tagged on the third or fourth day, and those are the ones that whipped the horde back in to shape. I hope that I'll actually get a chance to run around next time we do this on campus. :]

It's NHL playoff season! And the Detroit Red Wings are in for their 21st straight season (the longest running streak for an active team), so I've been watching A LOT of hockey when I haven't been studying. It's kind of unfortunate that playoff season falls right into finals, but it definitely makes for a good study break!

Apart from that, all I've been doing is studying. Exams, homework assignments, papers, presentations, projects. Yep, I've still got all of them left. Let's just say you won't see me around over the next few weeks unless you happen to be in the Engineering Building all day as well...

How is everyone else doing as finals are approaching? I hope you all got to enjoy the little bit of warmth and sunshine we had this afternoon! :]

Brraaaiiiiiinnsss!

Today marks the first day of Humans vs. Zombies at Michigan State since last Spring. Prepare for a lot of people running around in a flash of orange with nerf guns and balled-up socks. Sadly, I can not participate this year because my schedule prevents me from it, but I'll be rooting for the zombies to win right from the beginning. If I was playing today, I would walk around begging to be "bitten" (tagged) by an O.Z. (Original Zombie) so I could change from a "Human" into a "Zombie".

It's been a few hours since the game has started and I've barely seen any humans outside. I did find out that one of my friends is an O.Z. (not telling who!) and hearing him talk about it made me really regret not playing this year. Oh well, I'll probably be more productive in the long-run.

All I can say is, good luck Humans. You're going to need it.

GO BLUE.

April Fool's!

(Of course!!!!)

I think my favorite part about this day is all to see all of the crazy pranks people come up with on the internet. (But physical pranks are pretty classic too!)

Some of the best so far have been done by ThinkGeek, Google, and Reddit. If you go to the main page of ThinkGeek today, you'll find advertisements for selling things like Electronic Hungry-Hungry Hippos for iPad, Star Wars Admiral Ackbar Singing Bass, and Minecraft Marshmallow Creeps (I apologize for the nerdy references!). They even made videos to promote their "products" with descriptions, prices, and links to "buy" them. Here's a couple of example videos:

(If you didn't know, this is a parody of the McDonald's commercial that features the singing bass fish!)

Google has been messing with their search options with the first time zone since the holiday began. On the left-hand side of the screen, they've added links so that you can search during "The Gilded Age" or "The Enlightenment". They even made an Advanced Search page that included ridiculous search requirements to could loop over and over again. Silly Google.

Reddit changed around some things too. I don't personally understand how that website works, but I heard that they switched the forums for Pokemon and Digimon, and then advertised for a fake movie "Avatar: The Last Airbender in 3D."

You still can't beat the live pranks though. There's been a few pictures being shared around Facebook today about a whole hallway in Hubbard got covered with styrofoam cups filled with water! It's pretty funny, but that will definitely be a pain to clean up in the end!

Did you pull any good April Fool's jokes today?