InternshipFEST

14 Interviews, 3 days. Sound terrible? It's not! It's a FESTIVAL!

Imagine speed dating for internships. You have 20 minutes to interview and get a feel for a company that you may be interning with for 6 months starting in June. You also have to get a feel for the project that you will be working on and figuring out if and how you can "add value".

Overall, this was a great opportunity to get to know the partner companies much better and the opportunities they have to offer. Here's the list of companies the I interview with:

ABB

Amgen

Boeing

Dell

GM

Intel

Novartis

SanDisk

Spirit Aerosystems

I realize that the list isn't 14 companies long. That's because we don't necessarily interview for individual companies, but instead for jobs/projects. For example, Novartis has several different projects, thus I had several interviews with them, while other companies like Dell have one interview for multiple projects. It just depends.

One of the biggest changes of the InternshipFest was the LGO's as a group. Everyone looked SO GOOD in their suits! I'm used to seeing us in business casual or typical classroom attire, but this week... we looked good!

Next step: Ranking my interests.

We have a matching algorithm, much like medical or pharmacy residency programs. I rank the companies I interview with, they rank us. The algorithm then maximizes everyone's happiness. While it seems simple, I think the hardest part will be determining my order of preference. Then it's just a matter of waiting!

Up Next... InterviewFEST! A glimpse of the next class of LGO's!

Stair Race Fundraising

Ok Gang, once again I've entered an athletic event that requires fund raising. This is a vertical race in Boston, instead of running down a road, you run up stairs in a tall building. I have found that stair races are one of the few events at which I can excel. In my experience in Indianapolis with the Bop to the Top, I was able to place 11th out of about 1200 participants with a time of 4 min 37 sec to climb 37 flights of stairs, a mere 5 seconds from 5th place.

I've been training in the Green building on campus since August and I'm ready for the competition in Boston. I find that climbing stairs is an interesting form of exercise because it is very muscle intensive and lung intensive. I find that my running is limited by my lungs and my biking is limited by my muscle strength. Stair climbing is limited by both... when you get to the top your legs are burning AND you can hardly breathe!

The only problem is that I need to raise $85 more to compete. The race takes place on February 6th and all donations go to help fight Lung Cancer... which I find ironic since I always have so much trouble catching my breath at the end of the race.

Here is the Race Information Page

Here is my Donation Page

As always, any donations are greatly appreciated, even just a dollar! If there are any special requests to earn your donation, please don't hesitate to contact me, bgeswein@gmail.com.

Superbowl

Colts vs. Saints

This should be good. Drew Bree (of Purdue University) will be up against the Indianapolis Colts. As much as I would like to see the Colts win, I really wouldn't mind seeing Drew Brees win! But I'll still be cheering for the colts.

Snowboarding

I got a call from Dave, my brother the other night. He said do you want to go snowboarding this thursday. I was surprised to be planning a snowboarding trip just a few days out! And then it hit me, when you live in Boston, decent ski slopes are only short car trip away. I'm used to booking a plane ticket, renting a car, and planning several months out for a trip.

We left for the Wachusett slopes right after Dave got off work. It was an hour from the Alewife subway station where he picked me up. It had been a while since I last rode, but my boarding skills came back quickly! We were hitting the jumps by the 3rd run down. We ended the day with a straight shot down the black diamond run. I had never gone so fast on a board before but I couldn't even begin to keep up with Dave (who's really good at boarding! you should see him hit a jump!)

The place was lit so we could ski till 10pm when it closed. The weather was PERFECT... not too hot, not to cold. At no time was I sweat nor cursing the cold. And the snow, the nicest snow I have experienced in New England, which is famous for icy runs.

We are already planning our next trip.

Dave enjoying the dinner I packed for us.

Dave and I after tearing up the slopes.

Back In Boston

After being gone for a month, I'm now back in Boston. Snow is on the ground. Classes haven't started. Life is good.

Next week we have interview for summer internships followed by a visit from prospective students who are in for the admission interviews.

Plant Trek by the Numbers

7,500 - Miles Traveled

168 - Suitcases, Backpacks, Purses, and Bags (approximately)

51 - People - 47 LGO students, 1 SDM Student, 3 Faculty

36 - Bus Rides

13 - Days

11 - Individual Flights (7 trips - 4 trips had a layover)

9 - Companies Visited

7 - Different Hotels

6 - Lost Bags

4 - Receptions

3 - Hot Tubs

2 - New Waterbottles (gifts from Amazon and Dell)

1 - Trip that I'll Never Forget

I mapped my flights.

Note: I started and ended in Indianapolis while most students started and ended in Boston.

My Itinerary:

Indianapolis -> Seattle (via Memphis)

Seattle -> Phoenix

Phoenix -> L.A.

L.A. -> Austin

Austin -> Raleigh (via Houston)

Raleigh -> Detroit (via Atlanta)

Seattle - Boeing, airplane factory

Phoenix - Amazon.com, fulfillment facility

L.A. - Amgen, R&D headquarters

Austin - Dell, Cisco, and Flextronis, massive internet routers

Raleigh - Novartis, H1N1 Vaccine plant

Detroit - GM and Ford, automobile factories

Ford

I have owned a Ford Explorer for almost 7 years now. It is a car that I love. Very few problems and a ton of memories!

Our last day of plant trek was visiting the Ford Rouge Factory, the original production facility that was the vision and creation of Henry Ford himself. At it's peak, the facility was 1 mile long and 3/4 mile wide with 100,000 workers who turned raw materials such as iron ore into cars all on site. It was a completely vertically integrated facility that churned out cars.

The facility continues to build vehicles, but it's not quite as vertically integrated as it used to be. Here are a few picture from the visitor center balcony. The pictures show the view of the plant from left to right. In the first picture, the smoke stacks in the very back are from the steel factory that used to be part of the Ford Rouge site.

The plant that we toured performed the final assembly for the Ford F150 pickup truck. The facility is fairly new with plenty of "green tech" integrated into the building. Some of the green highlights included the green roof (the roof was entirely planted with a mossy/grass), the parking lot was made of a porous material that allowed water to run through it, and the overall electricity efficiencies of the plant.

The Ford plant looked very similar to the GM plant, however there were some significant differences such as the overall layout and subtle points of their operation. As a whole, it seemed as though safety was a bigger focus at Ford.

After a fantastic tour, we piled on the bus one last time as a class and headed back to the hotel. Plant trek was over.

Most of the class gathered at Ruby Tuesday's right next to the hotel for our Last Supper. We then headed to the local bowling ally/gaming facility for one last night of fun. Pictures to come.

GM

GM... In my opinion, this was hands down the most interactive and enjoyable visit on the tour. GM greeted us with management and union leaders. We then had a safety briefing and review of the day before we split up for the tours.

My tour started with the body shop. Everyone has seen the automotive robots that assemble cars. Now image hundreds of them, all working in symphonic union, moving, mating, and welding parts. As they worked, sparks were occasionally flying while workers feed raw materials to the robots. It was fascinating to watch the precision and dexterity of the large powerful robots!

We then skipped the paint booth due to the complications that we would cause and moved on to final assembly. This is where all of the parts came together on the production line to make a car. We watched a large automatic robots, conveyors, and workers worked seamlessly together to build roughly a car every 60 seconds. The facility as a whole was very clean and quiet, which was quite a surprise.

The GM plant also served as an excellent opportunity to see in action everything that we have been learning about lean production, TPS, and operations. It was great to see everything from our books in playing out on a daily basis.

In the afternoon, we had a opportunity to learn how GM employees are trained. We worked on their training production line where they have wooden cars to simulate how the production line works. We worked through problem solving, work balancing, and continuous improvement. It was a great hands on experience and a very fun way to interact one on one with the GM employees that train the line workers every day.

I had never been to a car manufacturing plant before, and the visit to GM gave me a new perspective of the company. I was overall very impressed with their operations, leadership, and overall product quality. The workers were proud of what they did, and they did it very well.

After our day at GM, we then headed to the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan for dinner with GM employees and current Ross students. It was an enjoyable evening meeting the Ross students and hearing presentations regarding the Chevy Volt.

As far as the tour, the overall pace has increase a bit. Early flights and late nights defined the second week as we approach the final day at Ford.

Novartis

Our next stop was Novartis is Holly Springs, North Carolina, near the city of Raleigh. The facility that we visited was brand new. So new in fact that they haven't started producing anything, they are still going through the FDA certification tests, which takes several months to years.

This facility will be capable of producing flu vaccines including the H1N1 vaccine. All of the workers were working busily to get the facility ready. Most of their vaccines will be shipping in pre-filled syringes. The syringe filling line was being calibrated and tested while we were there. We were told that the filling capacity during operation will be 600 syringes per minute... that's 10 syringes per second!

The part that fascinated me was the production capability. When the facility is running, it will be able to produce 150 million units in 6 months. Over the course of a year, it can produce roughly one does for every person in America. The production capability of this facility is magnitudes larger than what I have ever experienced.

A Quick Clarification

I've looked back at the blogs over the plant trek. Based on the pictures, it looks like all we do is have fun.

While we do have a lot of fun, the reason I don't have more pictures of "work" or time at the manufacturing facilities is because cameras are not allowed. They don't want me posting their secrets to the world. Thus my descriptions of non-intellectual property material will have to suffice.

Novartis today. Then off to Detroit for Ford and GM.

Cisco and Flextronics

We all have seen Cisco products before, the little purple/blue and black Linksys routers that broadcast wireless internet throughout millions of homes. But have you seen the routers that more or less power the internet? These are refrigerator sized routers priced up to a million dollars or more that connect everyone’s little Linksys router to the larger system of the internet. They are typically found at places like AT&T or other internet service providers. Cisco designs the routers in San Jose and manufactures them in Austin at Flextronics, the manfucaturing facility that we visited.

We were given a tour of the factory that makes these large routers from the stuffing of the $20,000 circuit boards to the final test. It was a large facility that was clean as can be. It was clearly one of the better organized and managed facilities that we have visited.

While the manufacturing facility was interesting, by far the highlight of the trip was a teleconference with LGO alumni who worked at Cicso in San Jose. However this wasn’t just a phone in teleconference, in was more like a teleport via Cisco’s Telepresence video conference system.

I first saw the Telepresence system on TV commercials. It consists of a conference room table. One on side of the table are chairs for participants, on the other side of the table are large flat screen TV’s and cameras. With the system on, while sitting at the table it feels as though you are in the same room as the people on the other side of the table, even though they could be half way around the world.

The system was amazingly real. During a conversation, I pulled out my camera and motioned to our hosts on the other side of the table (in San Jose, CA) requesting to take a picture. It was like they were right there. The main conversation continued as I was given permission to take the following pictures:

Dell

Monday morning started early (are you noticing a trend here). We piled onto the buses again, this time headed to Dell. Our day started with breakfast at one of their many buildings. Shortly after breakfast we had an experience that I will not shortly forget.

Michael Dell, CEO and founder of Dell computers, came in and greeted us with a short presentation leaving plenty of time for questions. It was an honor to be considered important enough for Michael Dell. We concluded the session with a picture and moved on to our tours.

The tours of Dell were very different than we expected. Dell has been going through big supply chain changes in recent years. They are beginning to outsource much more of their manufacturing, leaving less for us to see. While it was different than expected, it was still interesting, especially getting the opportunity to see their design center. The design center works on the appearance of the dell computers you see today… color, shape, attractive subtle features, and innovative shapes.

After the day’s tour we went to another reception (poor us) hosted by Cisco and Flextronics, the companies that we will be visiting the next day. After dinner we headed out to a local bar for some fusball, American suffle board, and billiards. A relaxing evening of games and fun!

Austin, it Rhymes with Boston

6:50 am flight to Boston, means getting up at about 4 am. After a long week and staying up past midnight, this makes for a very early morning. Add LAX and their terrible example of basic queueing theory and it makes for a frustrating early morning. Every time I have been through LAX there has always been terrible unnecessary lines and the moving of people from one area to another for apparently no reason other than to induce confusion and frustration. Anyways, we all made it to Austin. Everyone was asleep on the plane and in my half waking moment, I could have sworn they announced that we were landing in Boston.

I digress! We arrived in Austin and were swept away to our hotel via tour bus. Unfortunately some of our luggage was lost (once again, thank you LAX). The hotel is conveniently located near all of the bars and restaurants in downtown Austin. We are a few steps from BBQ, mexican, thai, and seafood. It's great.

The weekend brought some much needed downtime to catch up on emails (and blogging). Sleep, exercise, relaxing, and hitting the bars were on the tops of many agendas for the two days. As usual, some pictures.

View of Austin from out hotel room at dusk.

Night time shot of the state house.
Flaming Dr. Peppers during out night on the town.
More flaming Dr. Peppers... does MIT offer a class on breathing fire?

The weekend commenced with the annual internship interview sign up. We gathered in a meeting room at the hotel to do a draft style signup for our LGO internships. It was a little over 2 hrs of writing your name on the wall, but it went really fast and the group was fun to be around. In order for the matching system to work, we each signed up for 15 interviews! The interviews will take place in about 2 weeks!

Here's a picture of our draft. Pick wisely.

Amgen

We then flew to LA and took a bus out to beautiful Thousand Oaks California. We once again had outstanding accommodations. Here are a few pictures of the hotel. We also had a few hours of free time before our Amgen reception that evening, so there was more hot tub time.

Here are some pictures of the hotel.

The pool!

The waterfall near the pool... I love waterfalls!
View of the hotel from the pool.

That evening we had a great reception hosted by Amgen. We then awoke very early in the morning to start our tour. We arrived to the Amgen campus at about 7am. Like most places, cameras were not allowed so please allow me to describe the campus. Imagine mixing in a blender your typical college campus of about 5,000 to 15,000 students with a 5 star hotel and pouring it gently into the hills of southern California near Malibu.

Needless to say, the campus was beautiful complete with decorative water fountains, work out facilities, basketball courts, a soccer field, and even a garden where they grow hops.

After a long day touring beautiful Amgen, we headed back to a hotel near LAX airport so that the commute for our 6:50 am flight to Austin Texas. This also put us closer to the beach, so we convince the tour bus driver to drop us of at Hermosa Beach (I prefer to call it Mimosa beach). We gathered for a picture on a pier over the ocean, the broke apart for dinner, and joined back up at a great local bar. It was a great friday night and a terribly early saturday morning.

The LGO group on the pier!

Classmate Kacey and I after going undefeated in 2 on 2 fusball!

Amazon.com

Wednesday we headed to sunny Phoenix to visit one of their fulfillment centers... aka huge warehouse. This is the place that houses products, receives your order, and ships the items that you buy.

They have some serious data optimization systems that send your order to the warehouse that currently stocks your items and is physically located closest to your house. This optimization gets your order processed faster and reducing the cost of shipping thus maximizing consumer happiness and profits.

Once the order is received at the warehouse/fulfillment center, there is a computer systems that optimizes the path that the employees travel to fill the order. Some employees walk 12-15 miles per day. They call it the Amazon weight loss program.

Overall, the operation was fascinating to see. Amazon then treated us to a wonderful dinner at Morton's Steakhouse. It was a great opportunity to meet the employees and get there perspective of Amazon. From what I learned, I would highly advise anyone to work for Amazon AND if you have never purchased anything from them I would also advising checking them out. They offer a suite of services and products from books and electronics to fresh fruit and grand pianos... truly everything from A t0 Z.

Our accommodations is Phoenix were great! We stayed in a Holiday Inn with all suites so the rooms were big. We had some much needed downtime to spend at the pool and at a local watering hole. With a somewhat early start the next morning to head to LA, many of us did not get much sleep.

As usual, here are some pictures.

As MIT students, it is our obligation to make "MIT" wherever we go. We decided to kick it up a notch by making it at the bottom of the pool.

A little downtime in the hot tub!
The girls playing Jiant Jenga at the bar that night. I can't wait to build one of these myself.

Plant Trek Update

Alright... update on Plant trek.

Monday and Tuesday - Boeing in Seattle... AWESOME!

Wednesday - Amazon in Phoenix... AWESOME!

Thursday - Travel day... AWESOME!

Friday - Amgen in sunny Southern Cali... AWESOME!

Saturday - Weekend in Austin Texas... TBD but forecasts indicate AWESOME!!!

I'll start from the top, and hopefully get through the list before we start again at Dell on monday!

We walked through the massive Boeing factory, the largest factory in the world by volume... it was big. Sorry, not pictures of inside, but let me describe it to you... big. Looking out across the floor, I could see about 10 different large planes under construction. This plant was responsible for production of the 777, 747, and 787.

We then went to the 787 Dreamliner Gallery where all of the features of the dreamline (the new 787 composite airplane) are on display for people who are interested in buying. It was really cool to see and play around the seats and see other features of the plane. This plane will truly change the flying experience. Large windows, comfortable atmosphere, and more fuel efficient!

Here are some pictures!

Trek Roommate Ben and I in the Dreamliner Gallery.

Our group inside a mock up of the 787! Look how spacious it is (and Noramay sticking out her tongue)

A section of the 787 carbon fiber composite structure and us "sitting" inside.LGO's are flying a plane!

LGO Tour Shirts

Classmate Ben took the liberty of making these tour shirts in the style of a classic 80's hairband shirt. Take note of the "WIPS and Supply Chains" on the back... for those without operation background WIP stands for "Work in Progress" and is a very common in manufacturing facilities. I found that especially hilarious.

Seattle

Day one of the plant trek... Boeing... Awesome. I'll post pictures later, but we managed to see a little of Seattle tonight before we leave tomorrow. I left my mark by contributing a piece of gum to the "gum wall". A wall covered in chewed gum. It was a gross as it looks and sounds.

Colts Game

After I finished my undergrad degree at Purdue, I found myself with LOTS of idle time on the weekends, especially on Sunday. That is when I found the beauty of the NFL. Growing up in Indianapolis, I have always watched the Colts, but not religiously, mostly due to lack of interest as a kid and lack of time as a high school and college student. But post college, I suddenly had the time and the interest!

Additionally, I was able to acquire tickets through work, thus increasing my interest and enthusiasm. It’s one thing to watch a game on TV, and a whole different experience to watch the game live.

Over the years at work, I was able to attend at least one or two games per season, and it almost became a habit. This fall in Boston, one day I came to the realization that I would not be attending a Colts game this year, and with that came disappointment… until I check the Colts schedule and my winter break schedule and discovered a home game when I would be in Indy!

I quickly called home and informed my ticket reliable yet anonymous ticket acquirer of the coincidence. He sprang into action and secured tickets for the final home game of the season, which was especially exciting because the Colts were undefeated at that point. Unfortunately, the Colts pulled their starters in to prevent injury in hopes of a superbowl victory instead of an undefeated season. As my wise brother pointed out, incentives in the NFL encourage a Superbowl win over a perfect season. Too bad that happened when I was there.

Don’t feel too bad for me... we had tickets in a 50 yard line suite.

Me and my sister, Laura.

Laura and I in the bobsled... wait... why is there a bobsled at a football game?

Indiana COLD

Just as everyone depart Boston, I stayed for my first Christmas celebration and to witness the cold snap and snow. Temperatures dropped from roughly 30-40 degrees down to the teens.

I then returned to Indiana where the weather was considerably warmer than the temperatures in the teens in Boston. And then the cold snap hit Indiana. However Indiana had to “one up” Boston by dropping into the single digits… and even hitting zero. I have proof. A picture from my car.

Luckily, I’m warm blooded.

Hello Tom and Goodbye for now

Going home, to me, means seeing family and friends. Through the Christmas celebrations I have seen most of my family and with New Years approaching, it’s time to see friends.

I have recently received word that my good buddy Tom, roommate and friend from undergrad, will be deployed to Afghanistan shortly after the first of the year, leaving a few precious days to see him until late in the year. As usual, I made the most of it. We started from the time he arrived at the airport.

My other buddy, Ross, and I began the preparations. We were best men in Tom’s wedding and thus are intimately familiar with his less than excitable nature. Thus in order to maximize his “comfort” when returning home we made beautiful neon colored posters to greet him with at the airport. The posters had great information and sayings such as “hey Tom, We’re over here” and “Tom is my hero”. While he showed little more than a sheepish smile as he realized the crazy people holding signs were his friends, I am confident that he appreciated it… right Tom?

We then left him with his wife for the evening and rejoined him the next day for a fantastic New Year celebration at Ross’s house.

The weekend culminated with spending all of Friday with Tom. Enjoying out usual Qdoba burrito, watching #4 ranked Purdue PUMMEL #6 Ranked West Virginia, and just catching up in general.

Leaving Tom that evening brought tears to my eyes, knowing the hardships that he and his family will be going through during the next many months.

Tom, as Ross’s dad would say “Don’t be Stupid”. Make us proud. We’re thinking of you and we’ll see you soon.

Plant Trek Here We Come

1st flight down, 10 more to go in the month of January.

I'm on my way to Seattle with classmate Kacey for the Domestic plant trek. We are currently sitting in the Memphis airport with free wi-fi thanks to Google! (thanks Google!). I must say, this airport smells like heaven. There are several BBQ places filling the terminal with wonderful pulled pork smells.

We are excited for the upcoming days, but looking at the schedule, it'll be exhausting. I guess that's what college is for! I realize that I have some catching up to do, so I'll try to accomplish that during the next flight.

Happy New Year!