Ever wondered what it’s like to be a SEED intern at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) at Rice University? Let me take you through a typical day as an intern here.
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: Project Time
Our day kicks off at 9 AM with project time. This is when we set the tone for the day. We brainstorm, list the tasks at hand, decide what needs to be done, and delegate tasks to team members. Our mornings are all about planning and getting ourselves in motion.
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM: Standup
From 10 AM to 10:30 AM, we have our standup meetings. These sessions are essential for team coordination and collaboration. We discuss what we worked on the previous day, any challenges we encountered, and our goals for the day. This is also when we seek feedback and suggestions from our peers, supervisors, and mentors. We ask questions, get constructive criticism, and gather ideas on the best ways to proceed with tasks or handle challenges.
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM: Workshop Sessions/Team Work
We sometimes have workshops after our standups. If not, we return to our team’s station and dive into the day’s tasks.
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM: Lunch Break
Yippee! 🎉💃🏽 It’s time to catch some sun and relax! I bet everyone, or perhaps just my team members, looks forward to the lunch break every day. We refuel, relax, and socialize.
1:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Project Time
The afternoon is dedicated to project time again. 🙈 We review our goals for the day and spend the afternoon making significant strides in our projects. This period is crucial for hands-on work, ranging from refining our prototypes, researching, brainstorming, conducting experiments, or documentation. This is when we dive deep and make substantial progress.
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM: Wrapping Up
By 5 PM, or earlier if we finish our tasks for the day, we start wrapping up. We review what we’ve accomplished, plan for the next day, and ensure our workspaces are tidy. This winding-down period is when we reflect on the day’s achievements and set a clear agenda for the next day.
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From the highlighted daily schedule and the screenshot above (the parts in green are labeled project time), you can see that we spend most of our time at the OEDK working with our team members. This emphasizes how crucial team communication is to our success.
We recently had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Tracy Volz, the director of the Activate Engineering Communication Program at Rice University, who taught us the benefits of effective listening for teamwork. She began by listing out the numerous advantages of being a good listener:
- Retaining more information
- Improving productivity
- Facilitating decision making
- Solving problems more efficiently
- Making fewer mistakes following instructions
- Understanding colleagues’ or clients’ needs
- Anticipating conflicts or preventing them from escalating
- Reducing stress and tension
- Developing better rapport
- Negotiating a compromise
- Creating an environment of trust and respect
Afterward, we were paired into groups to analyze how well we listen to each other. We even took a listening self-evaluation. Dr. Volz also shared barriers to effective listening and provided tips for becoming active listeners:
- Staying focused
- Listening for ideas
- Observing nonverbal cues that convey emotions
- Mentally summarizing
- Remaining relaxed
The key lesson from this session was that listening and effective communication are essential in building strong and highly effective engineering teams. It’s important that we pay attention to how we listen as this helps us to communicate better. We must learn to ask open-ended questions and seek help when needed too. Listening is a skill that can be learned, and we must all strive to master it.
There you have it! 💫 That’s how we go about making something awesome every day at the OEDK. Each day is a blend of creativity, collaboration, and hands-on problem-solving. It’s challenging yet incredibly rewarding, and I’m excited to see what the rest of the internship holds. Stay tuned for more insights and updates from my journey as a SEED intern! 🚀