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@Amazon: my intern position involved programming and designing for the team's fundamental infrastructure.
Designing first before implementing, and ensuring that I had a a detailed design, were key. In addition,
a key takeaway here was simplicity: there are no extra points for fancy code that is harder for people to
understand. Indeed, those who were full-time on the team as SDEs wrote some of the most straightforward
and easily-readable code I have seen. One of my basic goals is to be able to do the same.
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@Khan Lab School: this was an intern position working alongside Sal Khan and another intern. I was exposed
to working with elementary- through high school-aged students, and how project-based learning can be used
to keep students engaged at all ages. I learned how to communicate with a range of younger students, as well
as to plan their math and science curriculum. And most of all, I took away that learning is for everyone,
and is most effective when enjoyed. (We used Harry Potter - styled teams to participate in similarly-themed
math events, for example.)
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@Main Street Scholars: I had two positions here over time: the first as a summer robotics coach, and the
second later as an academic coach. This first experience provided another opportunity at working with younger
students, but in this case, in a focused field as opposed to more traditional scholastic subjects. It was
rewarding to be able to teach physics to younger students in tangible ways that they could see, interact with,
and themselves have fun with. I tried to take this experience of engagement and carry it over into my
remote coaching as well, which particularly taught me the value of keeping up motivation and inspiration to learn.