Interviews

“I am an electrical engineer at the US Naval Research Laboratory, and I saw your name on the list of applicants for the 2010 SEAP program.  I would like to schedule a time to interview you for an opening we have at NRL in the Pulsed Power Physics Branch in the Plasma Physics Division.”

And that’s how I was introduced to interviews as a sophomore in high school. I went into that interview fairly unprepared in most ways and over prepared in a few other ways. My future mentor warned me that the lab was dirty so I shouldn’t wear anything too nice. But it was my first interview and I couldn’t wear just jeans. The compromise was a button-down without a coat-jacket and khakis instead of black dress pants. My future mentor was wearing jeans and a college shirt.

Luckily for me, this was not one of those interviews where the interviewer tries to scare you by drilling you with the strangest questions. In fact, it was rather a lot more like a tour of the lab. Eventually, after showing off the railgun (yes, I worked in a railgun lab), my mentor described what my project would be. While I understood very little I got the fact that I was the one who needed to be convinced here; not him. I realized how nice it was to be the one making the decision. This came in handy senior year during the college application process when I realized that I had to pick a college (after the college picked me of course).

Fast-forward to college and I’m going to first career fair. It was the general career fair that had all sorts of companies – not just engineering ones. I quickly drew up a resume and got it checked over in the course of two days. I printed out 10 copies since there were about 10 companies that I was interested in and headed on the bus to the basketball arena. Just like my first interview, I was both over-prepared and under-prepared. I only managed to get rid of two of those resumes because most of the representatives weren’t taking any. Many also told me that they didn’t take first-years (this makes me annoyed that our school doesn’t give you upper-class standing based on credits). I hadn’t done the research to know which would take first-years.

Still, I accomplished my goal: I went to the career fair. I now know much better how they work and what is expected. Though I didn’t get an internship (they apparently don’t really start opening up those types of positions until February), I made myself go so that I will be more comfortable at career fairs in the future when they are more important.