Internship @ DELL

The spring semester finally got over and it was time to chill out in the summer. I bid adieu to my sweet College station and started on my internship journey to the weirdest city Austin, Texas. The corporate housing provided by dell at ‘Villas of Bristol heights’ was an awesome place and I fell in love with it at first sight. It was a well furnished two bedroom, two bathroom apartment. They provided us with the necessary cooking utensils, cable and wireless internet.

I had a undergrad roommate from purdue and he arrived after a week I got into the apartment. I met some new people during the internship and at the end of the day met my manager. He handed out to me a brief description of the project that I would be working on throughout the internship. At the end of his speech came the biggest surprise; I learnt that my office is in Round Rock and not the palmer campus close to my apartment. I have to travel daily 10 miles and there was no public transportation available to Round rock. I was bemused for a moment and thought that I would be spending my entire internship money on a cab , but surprises makes life interesting. I opened the directory containing the list of interns staying in my apartment community and started calling one by one. I learnt that most people had offices in palmer campus, except for one undergrad girl in finance from georgia. Luckily, she had a car and was ready to carpool with me. I didn’t know how long it would work out. I asked for a change in apartment with the corporate housing and they provided me with three options, none of which were closeby RR campus. I thought in the worst case that I could stay with guru, who was placed in Enclave at La Frontera, which was closeby round rock campus.

It took two days for the cable connection to be setup at my home and for me staying alone was indeed boring. So, the corporate housing people provided me with a blockbuster gift card. Hence, the entire week went in watching some movies. In the weekend, me and guru watched PRISON BREAK SEASON I at a stretch at sekar’s house. It was indeed a captivating series and a wonderful plot that I have ever watched.

Another trouble came in the form of bedbugs. I believe it should have come from one of my baggages which was brought from College Station. When I informed the Corporate housing people they asked us to vacate the place and that they would provide an alternate housing. I was really irritated as we got settled in one place and now we have to move to another. Finally, we convinced them that we would stay in the same apartment itself and that they could do the treatment during our office hours. Till the end of my internship, the bed bugs didn’t trouble me except for their funny faces in my dreams.

Restaurants

I went to lot of Indian and other restaurants such as Bombay Express, Bombay Bistro, Macroni grill, Madras pavilion, Cholas Indian Restaurant, Olive garden, Masala Wok, Chuy’s hula hut, Trudy’s. Cholas was very close to my office and I used to have lunch there occasionally.

Potlucks

We had three potlucks during my stay at Austin. The first one was at Meenakshi’s house that set the expectations for further potlucks. She earned the title of ‘the best host’ and her house was kept in a pristine condition. After dinner everyone danced to the cine songs and then we played dumb charades.

The second one was at Sekar’s house at Villages of Sage Creek. The puffs that they prepared stealed the show. As usual we danced for sometime and earned them a lease violation notice. While leaving their house around 2 am, a strange thing happened. There was a small kid roaming around the apartment community in the dark. He looked nervous and after speaking to him we learnt that he had lost his parents. For the first time I called 911 and they responded immediately at the second ring. They asked me to describe about his physical features, his dress and enquired about me. It was pitch dark and to my surprise seven police vehicles came by the time we took the kid to a well lit place within a minute . They asked us a few questions and by that time his mother came from nowhere. It seems that she was talking to her boyfriend, leaving the child sleeping in the vehicle and he suddenly disappeared. Finally, I was happy that the kid was safe and I reached home soon. This entire incident was running through my mind in my sleep.

The third potluck was hosted at my apartment. The previous potlucks had set lot of expectation s among my friends and we wished that we made something palatable. Also, we invited lot of people than earlier potlucks most of whom were Dell interns like us. Anvesh really motivated me and so we started our preparation one day before. We made lot of varieties and I would say this was the first time after coming to US that I prepared some really good stuff that was well appreciated. We started playing a new game called “Book game” and at the end of the game everybody was pulling their hair. The party went on till 4 am in the morning. We were lucky that we didn’t get any lease violation notice.

Main Event and Austin 300

A group of friends went for laser tag at Main event. It was pitch dark and my team won the fast paced game of strategy. It was indeed like being in the battlefield. Running up and down was a good exercise too. At Austin 300, three of my friends went together for Snow bowling. I was surprised to see how people are good enough to move the balls to gutter always.

Dell Organized events

The first get-together that I attended at dell is a boat trip to Lake Travis on a sunny day. It was indeed hot that I didn’t go for swimming. I was just watching people diving from the boat and taking some snaps. We had lunch in the boat itself and there were some raffles organized by the HR team.

I took part in the ‘Associate of the day’ program, a half-day event at the Dell’s Topfer Manufacturing center where we are taken on a tour of the entire plant. The following video explains the dell manufacturing process.

We went to Six flags at San Antonio on a weekday. I enjoyed the water rides more than other thrill rides particularly the vortex.