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Q: What initially attracted you to apply for this internship at our company?
Originally, I was looking for an internship in Japan using the summer break. As I was searching on the Internet, I found CFD. I am intending to major in biochemistry, and interested in genetic engineering, so for me, the biomedical engineering aspect of CFD fascinated me a lot. Also, the description says the contract is from 1 month, so I thought CFD will also accept non-long term internships as well, and decided to apply to it.
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Q: How did this internship contribute to your professional development and career growth?
Since I’ve found the field of biomedical engineering to be interesting to me from before, it became a great opportunity to re-consider whether the field of study is really what I want to professionalize.
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Q: What specific skills or knowledge did you gain during your internship?
The first month, I could learn the anatomy of the heart, pulmonary artery etc using iTFlow and iTSurgery. Since some analysis requires programming to calculate the data, I could learn and practically use Python at the same time. During the second month, I mainly focused on editing the website, so I learned how to create/edit websites using WordPress. Any of them is not what I will learn at my college (considering my major), so I think I really had a great opportunity to have such hands-on experience.
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Q: How would you describe the company culture and work environment for interns?
I would say the company has a really open culture that whenever you have something to ask, they will definitely be there to answer your questions. (Also, the BBQ once per month:)) It is very flexible as well as they implement a flextime system, and you can decide when you want to work here depending on your schedule unlike having a fixed shift. I was very surprised by the comparably late working start time which is 11am, but I found it very suitable for me as I don’t need to be worried about extremely crowded trains…
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Q: What were some of the most challenging aspects of your internship, and how did you overcome them?
Probably analyzing using Python programming was the most challenging task for me. I was a complete beginner at programming so I had no clue on how to read codes/how to debug, so I had a hard time with this. Also, I suffered from understanding physical concepts. However, as I asked how to debug/output pictures, and about concepts of physics, supervisors or staff here answered pretty well every time, so with their help, I could have overcome it. Also, I started learning Python as I was hoping to start learning, and it helped me understand the components of codes.
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Q: In what ways did the internship meet or exceed your expectations?
It exceeded my expectations as I could have experienced a variety of tasks including coding, blood flow analysis, and webpages editing. I was expecting that I would work on blood flow analysis mainly, but I’m very satisfied as I could also learn Python programming and css/html. Also, the feeling of achievement that the website I managed will be used for recruiting internships is very great!
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Q: Can you share an example of a project or task you worked on that had a significant impact on the company?
I think probably the editing of the internship recruitment page is the project that could have a significant impact. The problem was that the background of the recruitment page became a weird gray color when the screen size was small. It was a hard issue to solve, and it took several times to fix it…I personally think the buttons to jump from the recruitment page to internship experience page were made pretty nicely lol.
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Q: What advice would you give to someone considering applying for this internship?
If you are wondering whether to apply to the internship, I would definitely recommend you to first take action. The benefit of getting hands-on experience in the field you are interested in is tremendous, and whenever you have questions, they will answer for you, so there is no reason not to challenge!
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Q: What surprised you the most about working here as an intern?
I was really surprised by how flexible I can schedule my shift, unlike having a fixed shift, and I believe that will allow students to manage their time the most efficiently. Also, the diversity in internships/employees surprised me a lot. I was not expecting that many people with different backgrounds, so that is also a part of the aspect that exceeded my original expectation.
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Q: How did the internship impact your understanding of the industry or field?
I think getting actual practical experience allows me to understand what the industry of the field actually does, and whether it is a great fit for me. Also, I was hit by the importance of programming, and might be more significant in the future, so that motivated me to learn programming myself.
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Q: Did you have a chance to participate in company events or social activities as an intern?
Yes! I had a chance to join the BBQ which is held once per month. The Meat was really delicious, and I could talk with employees/supervisors about what I won’t talk about during work, so it became a good opportunity to fit into the company more.
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Q: What do you think sets this internship apart from others in the industry?
I think the feature of developing cutting-edge technology is the point that the internship is far apart from others in the same industry. Since I don’t have any other internship experience, it is very hard for me to compare with something else, but from what I’ve felt, the friendly setting, high flexibility, and playing an initiative role in the study of a field that has a high expectation in the future development is what makes CFD special.
