Wrap-up and Final Presentatoin

Finally I have reached the end of my internship. This weekend, I am packing up all the things preparing to go back. In some sense, I miss Ann Arbor, but in others I miss Cupertino. Last Friday, I had a wrap-up meeting with my manager. Although my intern ends this coming week, since he is leaving for a business trip we had wrap-up a week before. I was told that overall my work was good. But Apple's recruiting system is not like other hi-tech companies, giving offer right at the end of internship. So I will have to wait for some time.


This week, I will have a final presentation on Thursday. I will report to my boss's boss boss, and some other staff related to my scope of work. On the same day, I will have another meeting set-up to expalin about my works so that someone here can follow-up those. Also, after all things are done, I am finally going to have a conference call with my boss to get feedback on my overall performance. I also have to give Apple a feedback about my intern experiences.


Overall, Apple's internship program seems to be very much organized, with diverse programs that interns can take advantage of. Although every people was busy, since I was assigned a manager and iBuddy, I could get as many information as I could, of course on the condition that I communicate with them in an efficient way. Besides work related stuff, there are lot's of extracurricular activities. Intern field trip to winery and SF baseball game, executive speaker series, department outing, meeting with senior managers and previous interns, lots of welcome/farewell parties and so on.
(Picture on right: Apple Corporate Games)

As a person having internship here, I am sure that future high-tech guys put Apple as their first priority intern place. You can work lots of smart Apple people, talk with them about their thoughts, sometimes see Steve Jobs at the cafeteria, sometime meet Woz and take picture with him, and also enjoy the beautiful weather at the west coast! Your experience here all depends on how you prepare and how you do at Apple!

How to do a Good Internship?

Again, time flew and I have only three weeks left until the end of my internship. Most of my projects are now at the final stage. There were several things that went on well, but also several others that I feel more could have been done. All these will be an asset for me in preparing for my full time job search. I also got some feedback after my seventh week, which was really a valuable one. Here are some of my recommendations while doing internship.

First, before coming for the internship it would help very much if you have a high-level plan of what you will do during internship. For example, you can plan some networking lunches with people at Apple or even some other people at bay area high-tech companies. You can also plan to write an intern diary to track what/how you are doing to improve yourself every week. As for me, I memorized some things that I should do or shouldn't do, but I didn't write a daily intern diary. But I guess when you write one it will definitely help you.

Second, try to understand the industry so that you can communicate well throughout doing your project. Although you are working for specific company, while doing work your knowledge on the industry helps dealing with other employees at the company. They will know that you are prepared and passionate about what you are doing at work.

Third, as a perspective of balancing your work and life, I suggest you plan to enjoy your weekend. Sometimes, intern life can make you get stressed a lot. Especially for me who is an international student, I was stressed while communicating since I am not a native speaker. Especially for international students, conference call seems to be the hardest communication you have to overcome to communicate well in a US company.

Anyway I hope good luck to all of the interns!

Half Way Through

Six weeks have passed since my beginning. I have been concentrating on gathering information for one of my projects and standardizing a process for another project. Since my boss and most of the team members were on a business trip, I got exposure into a new situation at Apple.

(1) Communication and Teamwork
While doing my projects, communicating with others at Apple was really important. It is quite common in all companies, but especially communicating well at Apple operations was really important. First reason is because Apple is so concerned about security. Since it is hard to get information, you have to be good in explaining well what you do and why you need the information. Second reason is operations specific. Since most of the people are traveling, e-mail communication skills are required. But before that, you have to meet as much people as possible during their stay at Cupertino campus. While my first MBA days, communication and teamwork was almost all that I learned, but using the skills and theory that I learned in a real environment gave me more takeaways.

(2) Function Based Structure
I had more executive speaker series with people at HR, operations, software. One thing interesting was one I heard from HR person. He told us the unique aspects of Apple organization. The one he emphasized was the functional based organization structure. He told us that functional based structure keeps Apple's employees professional in their areas and keep all people in a flat structure. I also had other chances to know about Apple operation by talking to senior leadership people of operations at a breakfast event. Apple gives as many chances as possible to let interns get to know Apple. I think I should utilize them more in my second half of intern.

(3) SF Giants Game
This week interns went to the SF Giants game. When I got to the stadium, I could see lots of SF famous players‘ biography with their signatures. Talking about baseball with colleagues seemed to be another way of enhancing communication and sharing each one’s interests. Good that I am a huge baseball fan.

My Intern Life So Far

Time is going so fast and 4 weeks have passed since I got here. Since my first posting, there have been several things going on.

(1) Work
Some of my project scope has been finalized and I am trying to keep pace with the schedule. Unfortunately I can't tell you about the details of the project, but I want you to know how important Apple thinks about confidentiality. As for each of the projects, I have to work with 3-4 Apple employees, some of whom are in other countries. To get to know each other, I organized several one-on-one interviews with them for introduction of myself and my project. One thing unique about Apple. When you begin your internship, you are assigned an i-Buddy. i-Buddy helps you with almost every issues and it was very helpful to me getting used to Apple and its people. Another thing I want to tell is that people here are really busy these days. Since the launching of i-Phone 4, almost all the operations people are busy whole day to resolve some follow-up issues. I see their passion and professionalism, and understand what made Apple at this position.

(Above you can see a pic of me and Woz. I hope I can finally be friend with Apple like the pic)

(2) Intern Events
As I said in the first post, there are lot's of intern events here. One is the executive speaker series. There were several speaker series since my first posting, including Steve's and Jonathan. I guess all knows who Steve is, and Jonathan is a SVP of industrial design at Apple. Recently he was announced as one of 50 smartest people in tech by Fortune. Again, the details of the speech is also a confidential, but I just want to tell you these events are really interesting and I gain a lot getting to know their experience and thoughts. There was also intern welcome dinner, field trip to winery etc. I am also in one of the teams for the corporate game, which is like Apple Olympic.

(3) Cupertino Life
When you are considering for a full-time job, I guess one important thing is the environment of where you live. Cupertino is a small city, but the weather here is so good. I heard that during May-December it hardly rains. Every day it is sunny, and you can enjoy a lot of leisure sports. Last week I brought my bike to Angel Island and went around the whole Island. People here are enjoying the weather and all seem to be sports-lovers. If you are very active person, I am sure that you will enjoy your life here.

First Week at Apple!

Hello All. It has been long since I first posted. Now I am at Infinite Loop 1 Cupertino, the place where Apple is. (See Picture 1)

Life at Apple is much more excited than I expected and I learn a lot everyday. All the people here seems to be very busy, but they are very open and cooperative. You can also see some people with strong characteristic. People who don't wear shoes, man wearing a skirt, people with long beard and so on. I can see that Apple is the company with the most creative and passionate people at Silicon Valley, leading technological innovation and lifestyle of future world.

Since this is the first blog, I will start with some introduction and things I felt at Apple.

(1) Where Apple is located. How it is like in Cupertino.

As I said, 1 Infinite Loop is where Apple is located. I-Phone users! Did you know that the icon of Maps designates Apple's location? I guess many of you didn't know about this.

The weather in Cupertino is the best in US. I heard that during May~December it doesn't rain. I think I am really lucky to have a chance to experience my internship in this environment.

To summarize, I am in such a good place!



(2) I saw Steve! Lot's of people at Valley Fair Store now for getting I-Phone 4!

At my first day, I was having lunch at the CafeMac. There I saw Steve! He was standing just in front of me to get some food, wearing the same clothes such as black turtle neck and jeans.

Tomorrow, people are going to get their pre-ordered I-Phone 4. Some of the interns including my roommate are going to get them. In the left is the picture one of the intern took today. Since Apple's security is very tight, I cannot explain in detail, but I-Phone 4 is a great product. I had a chance to look at it during my one-on-one introduction meeting. You should also try to get one!




(3) Projects going on. Intern events. Ross Bay Area alumni club.

As I said at my first blog, I am working in an operations department. I have several projects to finish for this summer, and am in process of narrowing down the scope of project with my boss. Unfortunately, this is all I can tell you about the project. APPLE'S SECURITY IS THE BEST. ALSO APPLE'S OPERATIONS IS BY FAR THE BEST. (Actually, I heard that Apple was selected the best company for operations)

I see that there are about 50 MBA interns here this summer. Interns are from a variety of schools, but mostly Top 10 + West-Coast based schools. Apple hosts many events for intern such as Happy Hour, Welcome Dinner(This is going on now!), San Francisco trip, Winery trip and so on. So I can enjoy my work but also enjoy gathering with other interns and finding out new things here.

I also have a Ross Bay Area event tomorrow. I will definitely participate and meet our alumni working at the Bay Area.

This seems to be all for today. I hope I can give you more exciting stories with some exciting pictures!

Hello!

My name is Chang Lee and I am a first year MBA student at the Ross School of Business. This summer, I am having my internship at Apple which was my top choice among all the high-tech companies. I am very excited and looking forward to meeting the people there.

I am planned to get involved in an operation project, and so far there seems to be several projects that I will be working on this summer but I don't know the exact scope of the project. I am planning to contact Apple to get to know about my project in more detail.

As a person who worked at Samsung as a business strategist, I am willing to get some business experience at a more global setting. Also, since Apple has been at the forefront of leading innovation through technology, I think my understanding in high-tech industry will increase after my internship. It is also important that I can work at the center of Silicon Valley with lots of high-tech companies such as Google, Cisco being there. I will meet various people from diverse background and function, and form a broad and deep relation with them.

One worry that I have is about the language since I only have business experience in Korea. But I am pretty sure that I will get over those problems well after having finished my MAP project at Microsoft.C