Week 9: Live to Learn
Hello again!
I misspoke two weeks ago when I said I would be on vacation this week, I am actually leaving tomorrow so I have some great experiences from this week at work to share with you all!
This week I would like talk about something I now have a completely new perspective on, leadership. Prior to my internship my definition of leadership had always stemmed from sports since that is really the only place I felt like I had a true leader. However, through getting know the day to day life of us intern’s supervisor, leader, I realized that leading in the work place is actually quite different than in sports. In sports, the leader still gets to play the game he loves, but in the work-place not so much. My boss has to spend most of his days doing administrative tasks, code review, tasking, meetings, etc., and doesn’t get to do much coding anymore. He has admitted to us that he misses coding a lot, but nonetheless loves his new position. He also mentioned that leading us has been especially hard since for one he has never led interns before, but also because he is expected to stay on the cutting edge of coding knowledge, but has no time to code. It really into perspective to my why leaders are valued so much when it comes to mentoring and training.
Beyond leadership I have learned a ton about cyber security. Before my internship I always told everyone I wanted to do cyber security, but I never actually knew what it was. I had just seen people on TV in NCIS and Criminal Minds hacking and it caught my eye. Since I had never done actual hacking, each day was an uphill battle trying to complete my task since I often had to google the words in the assignment to even see what they meant. At first I was frustrated, but then I realized I was not just aimlessly googling, I was just learning in a fashion that was foreign to me.
Per usual, I would like to close with a highlight from this past week. This week has been mostly packed with administrative tasks and meetings so not much interesting work got done. I did, however, get reassurance from my boss that I was doing a good job, especially for my youth, which made me very happy. My boss had never scolded me, so I figured I was doing fine, but to get the reassurance was great. Hope everyone reading is doing well!
Best,
Kyle
