Name: Fahad Zafar

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: GOOGLE

Location of the Organization (City, State): Mountain View, California

Title of Your Position:Software Engineer

Major(s)/Minor(s):Computer Science 

Expected Graduation Date (Month & Year): September 2014

1. Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research or service-learning position/assignment, including your day-to-day tasks and responsibilities.

This year, I had the privilege to work for Google, one of the biggest technology companies in the world. It was a great learning opportunity where I met many skilled, smart and creative people. I worked with the YouTube editor team on developing new video effects and integrating an external code source into their platform.

2. What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company and what have you found most challenging?

I found the work environment at Google to be very motivating, open and creative. I dealt with intelligent and highly skilled people working on real world problems, which proved to be a very uplifting experience. I truly enjoyed working with in this unique company culture. Working with the massive company code-base was initially challenging, but thanks to my team members, it all fell into place sooner than expected.

3. What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another summer activity?

Understanding the development life-cycle of software used by millions of people, watching all the pieces that solve complex problems come together and contributing to one of the most used websites in the world was truly an unforgettable experience. Not many tech companies work with data, services and problems on such a large scale as Google; being a part of this environment turned out be the learning experience of a lifetime.

4. How do you see your summer work as meaningful? Has it given you a chance to work on issues or with communities that matter to you?

Yes. I enjoy working with video/image data. Working with YouTube made me understand how to deliver meaningful experiences to millions of people.

5. How has your summer experience shaped the way you think about your power to impact the world? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

Working at a company with such a large user base is indeed a remarkable learning experience. I learned a little bit of everything, ranging from the subtleties of presentation to solving large data problems. It has changed my perspective on practical software development. My mentor’s experiences were very enlightening as we discussed many different issues related to computer science.  I have adopted many of the good practices that I was asked to follow during work for my personal projects. I have no doubt that my experience has instilled a great sense of accomplishment and confidence in me.