by Calvin Cheng – Tec-UBC RA
Over the past term, I have had the opportunity to work at Ericsson as a co-op software developer. Just like any other phase in life, there were a number of great successes and wonderful memories, along with a number of challenges and even better memories. Given that it is the end of the term and you may be thinking about what lies ahead in your journey, I thought I’d share a few notes about my experience in the co-op program.
- The classic interview question, “Tell me about yourself,” is a trick question.
The question would much better be phrased, “Tell me what about yourself is going to want to make me hire you to work for our company.” Start thinking about what value you bring to the company, and what experiences you’ve had that make you a right fit for the job. In talking to my manager at my current workplace, I was told that his hiring decisions are often made just from that first question. After all, how you answer this deceptively simple question says a surprising amount about you—whether you’ve done your homework about the company, whether you are able to articulate your strengths and communicate effectively, and whether your values and passions align with that of the company.
- It’s better to ask silly questions than to do something silly and have to fix it later.
Numerous times during my work term, I was reluctant to ask my manager for clarifications lest I be ridiculed in his mind. I carried on with my work, with my best assumption of what I was expected to do. It’s almost poetic to admit that every single time I did so, I managed to screw something up and ended up having to spend more time fixing what I had done than I would have spent if I had simply asked my manager first.
- Get to know the fellow co-ops at your company.
They’re in the exact same boat as you, and it’s likely that few other employees at the company are nowhere near your age range. I would definitely say that having lunch with my co-op colleagues every day makes even the most dreadful and monotonous days better, as it so often seems that they totally understand. Being able to catch up on each other’s lives outside of the workplace is also a nice feeling, especially given that you’re spending a third of your life for the next 4-8 months here. And besides, who knows? You might be working with them again once you graduate—so not only will you have gained a new friend, you’ll have obtained a potential resource for your future career as well!
- Embrace your mistakes, and learn from them.
This may sound cliché, but really couldn’t be any truer. A few weeks ago, I wrote a script to publish our team’s documentation onto our website. In the script, I included a line that would automatically reset our repository to our last confirmed revision, so that we would not be publishing things that haven’t been reviewed yet. The next day, I spent most of my time writing several sections in the documentation for our project. I saved all of the files and ran my script, completely forgetting that I needed to commit my changes into the repository first. The script reverted the documentation to the previous day’s revision, erasing all of the work I had done that day. Needless to say, I was very disappointed and demoralized, since my entire day had essentially gone to waste, and there was no way to retrieve it. What happened next, however, truly inspired me. I spoke to my manager about it, expecting to be ridiculed and laughed at. He did none of that; instead, he told me to remember the moment, and realize that mistakes happen and can bring us down sometimes, but picking ourselves back up and learning from our mistakes is what’s important. He told me he was actually happy that I did something like this, so that it could be an opportunity for me to grow as an individual. Coming from my manager… It definitely meant a lot to me, and is something that I will definitely remember.
- Doing nothing doesn’t sound as appealing as it did in school.
Naturally, as a co-op student, there may be times when you have nothing to do, through no fault of your own. Your team may be working on tasks that must be completed before you can start yours, your manager/supervisor may be busy and not have the time to assign you new work, or perhaps you’re at a stage in the project where no work that you can do can be done. Regardless, I’ve found that not having anything to do at work is often excruciatingly monotonous; in school, I was overjoyed by the times when I had no assignments to do or exams to study for. In the office, however, periods of inactivity would often feel like tedious strings of unproductivity, as you want to do something to contribute, but there’s nothing you can do.
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