Mike Oren.com

I am on my last five days of my internship at Google. It's sad--I've met some great people here, worked on some interesting projects, eaten some awesome food, and overall enjoyed working at Google/living in the Bay Area. My final weekend here I spent at Santa Cruz getting buried in the sand, building a sand castle, and then at night having a fire on the beach and roasting marshmallows (until we were kicked off the beach because it was closed). Then today (Sunday), I went to see a movie in San Jose, went to PF Changs, and then roasted marshmallows/made s'mores using oil burners. All-in-all a great time. Of course, my original plan was to get some work done/pack things up this weekend, but I think this was a better way to end my time here (and I can always stay up late on the weekdays to finish things up if need be, but I think it should be ok--I was mostly just trying to finish things up over the weekend so I could take the last week and just have fun).

In other news, I had my conversion interviews last week (my interviews from converting from an intern to a full-time employee after graduation). I wasn't sure what to expect going into the interviews and other than brushing up on the job ladder and thinking of some questions to ask the interviewers a few minutes before the actual interview, I went in it with very little prep work (in stark contrast to my phone interviews that landed me the internship). My first interview was very open ended/think on my feet style interview and that's the type of interview where prep work doesn't really matter anyway--it's also a type of interview I really enjoy because I find them challenging, yet relaxing (challenging because I have to think on my feet and there's only so much time, but relaxing because it's a very casual style of interviewing and despite the pressure, I feel it allows me to just speak freely since it's my own thoughts that are being asked for--not some canned response). The second interview I had was mostly about the projects I had worked on over the summer and was fairly nonchalant until the final few questions, which were more open ended and again the think on your feet style. But the final few questions in that second interview I found more challenging as they dealt with things I had little experience with (international research) and the question was phrased in a way where I felt my opinion was being asked for more than a research plan or something more work related and the opinion seemed more design oriented, which threw me slightly as well as I was expecting more research questions. My own, personal, opinion about international research though is that it should be moderated by an individual native to the culture so the participants can speak in their native tongue and so the moderator can pick up on cultural and language cues that a non-native researcher may be unaware of (e.g. if conducting a study in Russia for Russian web site, the moderator should be Russian and the participant should be communicating in Russian--if there's an interpreter, it should be in the observation room). Both interviews though were interesting and a lot of fun. Not quite sure when I'll find out if I'm getting an offer for full-time employment other than I know it will be some time after I finish my internship.

Along with that, I have been applying for other jobs because I'd like to not have to worry about finding a job during the last semester of my graduate studies and at the moment I don't know if Google will come through with an offer/whether or not the offer will be one that's acceptable to me given the high cost of living in the Bay Area. So we'll see how everything works out there.