The last couple weeks have been extremely busy and extremely
exciting. There are a lot of things I
wanted to make note of because it’s been a pretty life-changing end of the
term, but I simply didn't have time during dead week or finals. So I’ll try to document this as
chronologically as possible.
Intel
Intel is a go. A big
go. My team had expressed a lot of
interest in me from the start, from introducing me to everyone in the office as
“our new intern Eric” to basically telling me flat-out that they really wanted
me to work for them and they hoped I would decline the other position that was
up in the air (also with Intel, but different department). All of this despite the fact that A) it’s a
graduate internship and I haven’t started my graduate program yet and B)
evidently the position involves quite a bit of Verilog and that isn’t really
one of my strong suits. (I'll write more about exactly what my position entails in time.) I was completely
upfront with them about these facts, and yet they still wanted me to
start. In fact, they requested that if
possible I start early, in April
instead of June.
HR’s response wasn’t exactly snappy, but once they did
follow up with me and give me the official offer, I was completely blown away;
I’m receiving nearly $2/hr higher pay
than I requested (and I aimed quite high) full medical/dental/life insurance
and paid vacation/sick time.
Furthermore, I get paid out for profit sharing every three months, and
apparently last quarter that equated to 16 days pay for every employee... Why aren’t more people going into this
field!?
Graduate Program
I’m not sure if I mentioned this already, but about 5 weeks
ago I got the word that I am officially admitted to Portland State’s Master’s
program for Computer Architecture. After
the conversations I had with my advisor, I didn’t have any doubt this would
happen, but it’s still nice to know that it’s done and I don’t have to think
about it any more (for now).
Ford Family
Foundation
The application for graduate funding I worked so hard on
during winter break was accepted. One of
the advisors at the office told me that the chances of getting a graduate
scholarship were good, since it is not nearly as competitive as their
undergraduate scholarships, but it’s still a huge relief to know it’s in the
bag. Time will tell as to how financially helpful the scholarship will
be (it scales inversely with our income, which increased when I took the Intel
position) but anything is better than nothing and it’s still great to have on
my resume.
Survived Another Term
No matter how I measure it—schedule, workload, content, no
karaoke—this was one of (if not the most) difficult terms I’ve taken so
far. Microelectronics suffered from
terrible teaching and difficult and uninteresting material. Embedded Microprocessor Systems was MUCH more
difficult than the first class in its’ sequence (ECE 371: Microprocessors) but
was insanely interesting and incredibly useful. Operating Systems, a computer
science class (as opposed to my usual Electric/Computer Engineering courses)
had very dense content but surprisingly easy tests. Most of my grades are still up in the air,
but I’ve already had one very pleasant surprise in terms of final test results,
so hopefully that’s indicative of how they all went.
Spring Break +
Projects
More on this later, but I’m using spring break to work on a
couple really cool and useful projects.
More on those as they develop.
All things considered, the end of the term has been very
rewarding, and I am now enjoying the most relaxation and slowest mornings I
have had the joy of partaking in since Christmas. A good end to a crazy term.
