First off I wanna say that no two days are really alike at an internship, just as I tell everyone no two days are alike as a college student. Much to my surprise the work I’ve done as an intern has been very dynamic and exciting, and it’s been a great experience. That being said, I’ll give you a little insight to what a “typical” day at my internship at K2M is like.
6:45 – Wake up after snoozing my alarm since 6
7:00 – Get dressed, eat whatever I can find that qualifies as “breakfast”
7:22 – Leave for work
7:30 – Clock in (takes exactly 8 minutes from my apartment door to my desk, I’ve timed it)
7:45 – Start part inspection, look for one of the “cool” implants so I don’t have to inspect 3,000 set screws…
7:48 – Find rongeurs, play with them for a little bit, inspect
8:30 – Les rolls in the new products to be inspected that day, scope out the batch for Cascadia
9:30 – Book Club with my manager; discuss the many aspects of the design and development process for medical devices
9:45 – Get off task, start watching YouTube videos of spine surgery
10:30 – Break time! Grab some coffee and watch the mess that is daytime television
10:45 – Launch some revised infocards in Master Control, use my knowledge of ANSI and ISO standards to make sure documents are in compliance
12:00 – Lunch, duh
12:30 – Head over to the biomaterials lab for testing
12:45 – Begin ASTM standard testing pedicle screw prototypes
12:48 – Break our first screw
12:50 – Break our second screw
1:15 – Record the results and send to Senior engineer for analysis
1:30 – Head to the bioskills lab for a cadaver lab
2:00 – Get outfitted in scrubs, lead covering and PPE
2:15 – Observe surgeons test K2M products, offer feedback to product managers and the best part, cleaning up the lab
3:00 – Jump on SolidWorks to model some inspection gages
3:30 – SolidWorks crashes, again
3:45 – Finish modeling the gage, mock up a drawing to be launched in Master Control
4:15 – Meeting with the Product Management team, see a demo of the Mesa Deformity system in the demo room
5:00 – Clock out, head home
5:08 – Get home, told you it only takes 8 minutes!
6:00 – Go for a run on the W&OD trail to train for my upcoming half marathon
6:45 – Realize I probably should’ve waited to run later as I am drenched in sweat thanks to the 75%+ humidity
7:30 – Contemplate dinner, scrambled eggs or chicken… (I am a man of few culinary trades)
8:30 – Watch sports, literally any sports that are on TV
9:00 – Open up LinkedIn, tell myself it’s “time to network”
9:05 – Computer screen is dark cuz I got caught up in sports
10:30 – Head to bed, tell myself I’ll go to sleep early tonight
12:15 – Realize that I’m supposed to “catch up” on sleep this summer, get off Snapchat/Facebook and go to bed
The summer has been an awesome one, and as I said in my last blog I’ve been traveling a lot on the weekends and making the most of my time in NOVA (Northern Virginia for my West Coasters). It’s been a hot one, but I’ve really enjoyed my time at K2M this summer, and as I wrap up my internship this Friday I am sad to go, but so excited to be back in LA! I’ll be back home in Phoenix for a few days and have some cool stuff lined up while I’m back, so stay tuned for some more summer stories!
Fight On
[author title=”Author” author_id=””] Button Text
