Today marks one full week of working at Indium Corporation. I have learned more than enough information to be able to publish an insightful post about what I have done so far. During my time here I have met a lot of intelligent people who will allow me to develop my skills throughout the summer. I enjoy the atmosphere at work along with every task I am assigned.
Before I get more in depth about my internship, let me introduce myself. My name is Alex Cooke and I am entering my senior year at Clarkson University. I did not take a straight line path to Clarkson. Most high school students who plan on attending college start the fall after high school graduation.For me, I decided to attend The Clarkson School. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it is an early college entrance program. What this means is that I combined my senior year of high school with my freshmen year of college. What would have been my senior year of high school turned into me being enrolled as a full time student at Clarkson University. I had every university student privilege and even joined the Men’s Lacrosse Team.
I see a lot of similarities between the skills I learned during my first year of school and the skills I need to succeed at this internship. For instance, my first year of school was an unfamiliar new situation. This is exactly how it was my first day at Indium Corporation, but the people I am surrounded by made it easy to adapt. At school I had to figure out how to live on my own and make new friends. Living in a dorm with your friends is a much different environment than living at your parent’s house. After a few weeks at school I learned about time management and multi-tasking. One drawback to going to college early was that I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was. I was lacking the study skills that I should have developed in high school and I was on a very busy schedule between classes, lacrosse, time in the gym, and managing my social life. All of these things are still relevant, but the difference is the pressure and tasks are always evolving.
At Indium Corporation, I am currently working on three projects. Much of what I have done so far revolves around the use of Microsoft Excel. Analyzing data is the nature of my work. One thing that I take from this is to constantly step back and evaluate priorities. This is important because you always want to be the most effective and do something that is the most meaningful. You could have a million projects, but you have to always look at your projects and ask, “What is going to benefit the company the most and what is going to benefit me the most by doing this?” Stepping back also allows you to look at what you are doing and think of it from a logical perspective. It allows you to stay on track and always strive for the goal.