Google from an Intern's Perspective

Almost as long as Google's been around, I've known that one day I'd like to end up working at here. Growing up, I used to read business and technology news almost religiously, and even back then, Google seemed like the coolest company around, somewhere I could imagine myself working.

Fast forward a few years to 2006; I was a freshman Information Science major at Cornell University, and Google was still my dream place to work. I heard from a friend that an alumna from Google was coming back to Cornell to speak. I knew I had to meet her. She was a user experience researcher, something I didn't know much about, but thought might be an interesting field to explore. We started emailing back and forth, and lo and behold, two interviews later, I ended up in sunny Mountain View.

Interning at Google has been more than a dream come true for me; it's been the experience of a lifetime. Just a few days into my internship, I got to speak to Larry and Sergey, the company's co-founders and two of my greatest heroes, at our weekly company-wide meetings. I was blown away by how promising this internship was gearing up to be. 10 weeks in now, all I can say is that Google has definitely lived up to my expectations and all the hype.

I ended up working in user experience research on the Apps side of Google. As a researcher, I investigate ways that our designers, engineers, and product managers can make our products more useful and usable. While I may never get to say too much about what I worked on over my summer vacation, I know the skills and training I'll take away will be useful for the rest of my professional life.

Looking back on my time here, I've learned and grown so much, I couldn't have asked for a better experience.