New Beginnings

When offered an opportunity, take it and absorb as much as you possibly can, because any moment can become a learning moment.

Going into my first internship, I felt very ready, as I had heard many stories about "what to do", and the "right questions to ask". However, nothing can prepare you enough for a startup environment in the Bay Area. Being surrounded by pure hustle and motivation to keep things rolling is unlike any other experience, and pushes you to do things you would not have thought possible. The first thing I learned as I entered was that no one has one job here; everyone must take on many roles to keep each project flowing smoothly. There may be project leads and developers, designers and directors, but all of these positions have a bit of overlap when working at a startup. In other words, you need to learn to fill different roles, and fill them well. I was thrown straight into the deep end with a website introduction, goal plan, and ideation outline, and suddenly I was off to work.

Immediately, my partner and I began throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck, and documented everything from day one. What would help the website flow better? What would increase user engagement? What would we want to see as an outsider joining the website? All of these questions and hundreds more were taken into account that first day. On my second day, I put one of these questions to work and coded an AI-detection feature to test the waters and put my technical skills to use. I tested numerous HuggingFace pre-trained models until one stuck, and we were off. We continued brainstorming and setting goals for the summer, both short-term and long-term, how we would get word out, and what more we could do to make the project unique. These features were held on to until backend access was available for implementation.

The next few weeks consisted of interviewing and onboarding new members to the team, which was an experience I will never forget. Being on the other side of the interview process was truly invaluable and showed me the impact one has to make to stand out in a crowd of applicants. We began delegating work among the team, and were back developing once again. Throughout the next few weeks I coded a plagiarism feature which was a bit tough with the limited resources of a startup environment, but the internet proved to be an invaluable resource. Using OpenRouter's DeepSeek API, I was able to make a plagiarism detector that was around 80% accurate, and set aside for future polishing. This same API was also used in chatbot research I conducted as well, and I learned loads of information about a world I had lacked to explore as an intermediate coder. Coding my first chatbot and dealing with database connections was a finicky task, but one I am glad I struggled through, because making mistakes is truly the most effective way to learn. At this point, the website was ramping up to be launched, and we put full focus on debugging, code implementation, and LOTS of testing. This was the moment we had been leading up to all summer.

As the internship came to an end, I reflected on everything I had learned, and discussed some of the hardships with my advisor, who gave great advice that I will certainly take forward with me in my career. Always have a clear picture of what you are trying to accomplish, because without this, miscommunications will lead to innumerable setbacks and stagnant work. Feel free to define your own goals because they will often not be defined for you. We yearn for structure and step-by-step guides as newcomers, but this is rarely provided for us. Have the initiative to set your own path and learn to adjust along the way. And finally, always be attentive. Ideas may come when you least expect them to, but document and take advantage of these creative bursts rather than putting things off for later. You will thank your past self for doing so.