One day working as a intern

My internship may be a little bit different from my classmates, because it is remote. That means I do not need to go to an office everyday and it is more task-orientated. This is actually my first time to do a remote internship so I just feel "Wow, the world is so small."

On my first day, another intern and I needed to receive training in order to start our data analysis project. The whole training process demonstrated how telecommunication hi-tech enabled people to meet virtually online even though they were geographically distant. There were in total four people participating in the training: one training staff member, our supervisor, and two interns. The person who was going to train us was at the headquarter located in North Carolina, and my supervisor was at her home in Mesa, AZ, and I was at home in Phoenix, though not sure where the other intern was but surely somewhere by his computer. We were connected by conference call using our cellphone, and thanks to a software, everyone was able to see the trainer's screen and how she was operating. This was really helpful because we were more focused on the training content without distractions. However, the disadvantage was that we cannot see each other.

As an international student, the most interesting thing is about the time difference here. The scheduled training time was 1 to 2 at east coast time, which was 11 to 12 in Arizona time. I did not realize this at first. When I received the calendar saying it was from 1 to 2, I did not notice this was east coast time. Luckily, my supervisor clarified this to me or I might miss the training.

Being a remote intern has a lot of flexibility and fun. This is a typical day showing how everyone is connected to each other through the online planform.

Picture from http://blog.ringcentral.com/2013/02/you-can-ignore-the-brouhaha-over-remote-work/