Interning and Exploring!

Last summer I studied abroad in Rome with the Viterbi Summer Overseas Program (and blogged all about it!), so you’d think I couldn’t possibly top it this summer. You might be right, but I’m getting close!

I kicked off summer by heading back to my Wisconsin homeland, but pretty quickly came back to Los Angeles, which has felt like a second home for a few years now. It’s crazy the first time you’re getting off the freeway, driving up Fig towards campus, and you feel the same way as when you went home for the first time during freshman year.

I’ve been back for a few weeks now, interning at Amgen, a huge biotech/pharmaceutical company in Thousand Oaks, CA. I’m working in the Information Systems department. The employees and interns all come from a variety of different engineering backgrounds, and I wanted to take the summer to explore other things I could do with a degree in Biomedical Engineering (it’s a super flexible, door-opening major). So far it has been a BLAST. Working is so different from school, it’s crazy. Your whole schedule changes up.

Every day has been a fun challenge at work. Since my background doesn’t directly prepare me for this, I’m always learning something new. The great thing is that if biomedical engineering has prepared me for anything, it’s learning new things really fast! I went from not knowing how an excel macro or database worked to making spreadsheets dance and forming databases out of nothing. I’m also doing some cool research with other programs nobody on my team has used before. Unfortunately, I’m under some pretty strict non-disclosure agreements and we can’t take pictures on Amgen’s campus, so I can’t say much more, haha (it’s more exciting this way, though :P)

I’ve done something super fun pretty much every weekend so far, and I CAN show you pictures of all the fun summer adventures I’m having though, so BAM now this is a photo blog!

If you’re observant, you’ll notice Leah and Emily in some of these pictures! You should check out their blogs too!