Finally Getting to Start: First Impressions of the Job

After finally being able to start my new internship with the NCSA, I've had a lot on my mind. The company is essentially creating apps for a college football archive for every individual college. Since we're just getting started, we only really have one for our local college, UGA. It's called the UGA Vault. I've never worked for a startup company before, so it's very interesting to see how a company lays out its long term goals with the realization that we don't even have a finished product to put out there for consumers. The guys that I'm working with are incredibly laid-back, which is a great stress-free environment. There aren't a lot of us, which means that I have to shoulder a fairly heavy load. This makes me feel like I'm a big part of the company, which makes me feel great, and it makes me feel really productive. I'm working as a swiss-army knife for the company, having already been involved in their social media development, researcher and writer of some of the information, creative brainstormer for the app and other software development, and I know that later I'll be involved with their video editing process. I have a lot of freedom as a lot of my work is independent, which is great for me since I feel that I can really expand on my creativity without needing someone to constantly look over my shoulder. Communication between all of us is easy, through email, phone conversations, skype, and small meetings between all of us. While it wasn't the internship I expected to have going into the summer, it's something that I'm looking forward to continuing with for the rest of the summer, and it has the ability to be something I can work for once I get back to school as well, so perhaps I'll take advantage of that opportunity too.