This week, most of the students from the MIMS class of 2014 are finishing up summer internships and preparing to return to South Hall for the second year of their master’s program.
We spoke with seven MIMS students from the class of 2014 about what they’ve been doing this summer, how their first year’s classes prepared them for their internships, and what they’re planning for their second year and beyond.
Ryan Baker & Ignacio Pérez
Pop Up Archive
Ryan Baker and Ignacio Pérez are interning at Pop Up Archive, a start-up founded by I School alumnae Anne Wootton and Bailey Smith (MIMS ’12) based on their final project. The two are working on developing the Pop Up Archive application, which is currently in beta release.
Although Ignacio has an extensive programming background, this is Ryan’s first venture into software development — and for both of them, this is their first experience at a start-up.
The start-up environment has been the most valuable part of the internship for Ignacio; he was looking for something completely different from his background in the banking and airline industries. “We’ve had the opportunity to see how companies like this start growing,” he explained; “It's been a really great experience.” The School’s Non-Profit Internship Grant has helped sponsor their internship.
Ryan has a long history in the music business and as an amateur audio archivist, so the world of independent radio producers has not been a huge adjustment for him — but he has relished the opportunity to work in software development for the first time, and has enjoyed learning new web development technologies like AngularJS and Ruby on Rails. “This is one of the reasons I came to the I School,” he explained. “This summer has given me a lot more confidence in my abilities to do this kind of programming.”
Both Ryan and Ignacio have found their first-year coursework valuable in their internship. Info 202. Information Organization and Retrieval has been especially relevant to the organizational challenges of the Pop Up Archive. “A lot of Info 202 involved understanding how people categorize things differently,” said Ryan. “It’s important to anticipate how people are going to use the archive, and structure it in a way that’s designed to meet their goals.”
Info 290. Innovation and Information gave them useful skills for building a start-up. “The course really provided the right tools for designing and organizing the small details of running a business,” said Ignacio. And Info 205. Information Law and Policy gave them a useful framework for thinking about user privacy and user interactions from a policy perspective.
Both Ryan & Ignacio are looking forward to using their new skills and experiences in their MIMS final projects during the next year — although neither admits to having decided yet exactly what those projects will be.
More:
Sandra Yuen Helsley
Web Developer, LinkedIn
Ryan Baker & Ignacio Pérez
Pop Up Archive
Priya Iyer
Customer Database Intern, Apple
Lisa Jervis
Researcher, Progressive Technology Project
Corey Hyllested
Data Scientist Intern, StubHub
Eric Zan
Technology & Interpretation Park Ranger, Bandelier National Monument
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For more information and statistics about MIMS students’ summer internships, see the results of the 2013 MIMS Internship Survey 2013 (PDF).