For most of this summer, I interned at Expedia (dot cooooom!)

I was interning as a tester on the corporate travel team. My main task was to automate tests for the website. In other words, I had to write code that acted like a human user that would perform searches on the site, book flights, make accounts for users, etc.

Aside from coding, I got to find out what it’s like to work on a team in “the real world.” I wholeheartedly believe that this was a much more important lesson than anything I’ve learned at school thusfar. Being able to interact with other people on the team, and communicate ideas and thoughts was a very important asset this summer.

Additionally, I learned it’s much easier to pursue your hobbies after school (and constantly pulling all nighters) are over. There was so much cool stuff the people on my team were doing. A few were training for the Columbia Tower stair climb, one was an avid whitewater kayker and rock climber, one was in a local orchestra, and a big group would get together regularly after work and play halo against other teams. (They went on to enter the 128 tournament at PAX.) My team was so awesome.

Aside from Expedia, I had alot of time this summer to pursue other hobbies. I learned how to whitewater kayak, and went on a camping trip with the University Kayak Club. It was super cool to meet brave people and go on some technical rivers. I also had time to ride my sweet bike around Seattle and get some good exercise.

The bulk of my summer, I was working as a Program Manager intern at RealNetworks (the RealPlayer company). There were two main projects I was working on this summer.

Project #1: Write a functional specification for the Rhapsody client (the application that manages their music subscription service). Though Rhapsody already existed, there was almost no documentation on it–the only way you could learn about the product was to ask other people about it. Unfortunately, this becomes a problem when very knowledgeable people leave the company. My job was to gather all the technical information from everyone and document it. Because there is so much different functionality in Rhapsody, this project took roughly 6 weeks.

Project #2: Instrument Omniture into the Rhapsody client. My job was to write a technical document to describe how to instrument Omniture (a web analytics product) into the Rhapsody client. This would allow the company to track user usage data to answer important business questions. At first, this was difficult because I didn’t know anything about Omniture (and their online help documents were not very helpful). Finding good resources about Omniture and learning about the product took about 3 weeks. Eventually, I was able to create a roadmap to divide this project into separate phases, each with details about the technical implementation. The team is using this document to guide them as they work on instrumenting Omniture–in fact, they have already started work on Phase 1!

I faced many challenges in the scary work world, but I felt that I had a valuable experience as an intern at RealNetworks. It was a good opportunity to work with many technical, experienced, and smart people. I also felt that I did meaningful work that will actually be put to use. In short, if you’re thinking about doing an internship, I highly recommend it!

Other than work, work, and work, I went to San Jose and San Francisco for a few days in August. We were visiting my brother who was interning at Adobe, and just going around and exploring the Bay Area. I also spent a lot of time at home playing with my little brother, now 9 years old! He’s a big kid now.

That pretty much sums up my summer .

I had an awesome summer!  I spent the first few months co-teaching CSE 142 with Hélène Martin.  She did an awesome job and made the course a lot of fun.  More importantly, she did all the work, so i didn’t have to do anything.

After 142 was over in August, I went on a bunch of trips.  First I went to see my family in Pasadena, CA, including my adorable baby niece Geneva.  She is 1 1/2 years old, and it’s a bunch of fun to watch her grow up.  She’s just now mastering walking/running around everywhere, and starting to talk and sing little ABC songs and stuff like that.  It is a blast to play little games with her.

Then I went on my largest trip, a European vacation to Ireland and Italy.  I spent most of my time in Dublin, Ireland, visiting my good friend Jessica.  She and I went to college together, and we’re also writing a web programming book together now.  She lives in Dublin and works at a web dev company there.  Jessica and I went from Dublin to some small towns in the western coast of Ireland.  It was really peaceful and relaxing.  The last stop was a hop to Rome, Italy, where we saw some of the most amazing historical sights in the world, such as the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Vatican, and the Sistine Chapel.  It was amazing.

Now I’m back, and I’m getting ready to teach CSE 142 this fall.  We have over 630 students signed up for the class as of today, gulp!  But it should be fun.  Back to work!

I haven’t written one of these since the 6th grade, so I’m a little out of practice, but here’s my “What I Did Last Summer” essay.

I took some classes during summer quarter, including a CSE 326. Since summer quarter is pretty laid back, it seemed like a good time to branch out by exploring new areas of study. I decided to take an Art class and a Women Studies course. Summer quarter was a fun departure and I enjoyed stretching myself, but this summer’s classes also helped to reaffirm my choice of a major in Computer Science (because I am definitely not an artist!). During summer quarter I also TA’d for CSE 142. I always enjoy TAing and this quarter was no different. Actually, it was a little different because the course enrollment was much smaller than usual, but I liked the more intimate setting. It’s nice to be able to recognize more faces in lecture.

After summer quarter ended, I had a bit of a down-time before I had to move and start thinking about the fall. I got to relax and have fun with friends and family. I made a trip down to Cali to visit my boyfriend, watched a lot of Law and Order with my mom. You know, that kind of thing. One highlight was a hike to Camp Muir with my brother. It was a tough hike but the day we went was clear and absolutely beautiful. We had a great time, minus the fact that my brother basically fell into a crevasse. He caught himself and was fine but it was scary!

But enough about my summer- I can’t wait to hear all the details about the other officers’ experiences!

-Janet

Hello everyone! The officers of UW ACMW have been very busy this summer with travel, school, internships, research opportunities, work, and other activities.

We’d like to share some of our summer experiences with you. Expect some posts from us in next two weeks!