Tartan Careers - Valerie Reiling

Sport: Women's Track and Field

Class Year 20-21: Senior

Major: Mechanical Engineering

Bio: See Valerie's track and field bio

Internship Year, Title, and Company
Summer 2020, Perception and Autonomy Intern, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory

Application process: Applied in September, was interviewed in October, and received and accepted offer in December

Why did this internship interest you: Draper has many interesting projects in many different sectors so I thought this internship would help expose me to what was happening in different engineering fields and connect me with people with diverse interests.

How did you complete the internship - remotely or on-site: Remotely.

Description of internship: I designed and programmed a UI (user interface) for an autonomous underwater vehicle analysis software using MATLAB. I worked 8hrs/day mostly on my own, with occasional meetings with my supervisor and weekly meetings with the team I was a part of to review project progress. Basically, I was coming up with the layout for a control panel so that a user could view and interact with graphs generated by the analysis software. By the end of my internship I had set up the design and most of the basic code framework and had documented all my work, so now other software developers can go in and expand upon it. I think I was assigned to that project because I have experience in MATLAB and expressed interest in user interface/user experience design.

How it could have been different if not remote: I feel like it was harder to connect with other employees/the other interns virtually. It was a little daunting working on my own, especially because this work was very much out of my comfort zone and I got stuck or confused quite a few times, but my supervisor and team members were always willing to help and answer any questions I had, so I really learned a lot.

How did this internship shape your next move: I think this internship helped give me a better idea about what I want to study in grad school, and provided me
with useful experiences that will hopefully make receiving another internship or full time position in the future easier.