A New Job; No More School

6/6/2020

In the last month, I’ve graduated from NDSU, finished my internship at JDES, and started interning at Voxtelesys!

Graduating

On May 12th, 2020, I took my final exam - not just for Power Systems Design, but for my four-year degree in Electrical Engineering at North Dakota State University. The semester “officially” ended that Friday, May 15th. I later found out that I managed all A’s my last semester, which is partially because of how much lighter the courseload was with the COVID developments.

Looking back, I had a lot of fun at NDSU. Some of my best friends were made there - Jacob Cox, whom I lived with in the dorms for multiple years. Andrew Vetter, with whom I’ve been able to fully nerd-out over Linux and server administration. Meghan Detlaff, a unique individual who likes to spend her time in trees (she is an Urban Forestry major).

I’ve also learned a fair amount about electrical engineering - which is good, since that’s what I was there to study.

But most of all, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I learned while working at JDES that, while I like electrical engineering, I really want to do software for a living. I’ve learned a lot about making (and sometimes losing) friendships. I’ve become better at communicating, and learned that sometimes the hardest part of communicating is knowing what not to say.

Leaving JDES

On May 29th, I completed my last day as an intern at John Deere Electronic Solutions. During my final few weeks, I worked mostly with Python and transferring knowledge I had gained about the internal project to another intern, Joe.

During my time at Deere, I learned a lot about software development, especially in the context of a team. I worked on my Git skills, developed an understanding on setting up automated Jenkins jobs, and vastly developed my Python experience. Overall, my 26 months spent at Deere were extremely educational, and I will miss the people I worked with there.

Starting at Voxtelesys

On Monday, June 1st, I began interning at Voxtelesys. Voxtelesys is a SIP services provider in Fargo. They are a small company; the Fargo office has less than 15 people. I’ll primarily be working with C and a piece of software called OpenSIPS. Later, I might be doing some development with Go and/or Node.js. So far, the environment is cozy and friendly. If all goes well, I’ll become full-time this fall.

That’s all for now. I’ll be sure to update on my personal projects in the not-too-distant future.