Fyza Parviz
First and last name: Fyza Parviz
Year in school: Junior (Senior in Fall)
Major: Electrical Engineering
Home city/state/country: Peshawar/NWFP/Pakistan
1. Where did you work?
Beceem Communications, Mobile Wireless Department, Santa Clara CA
2. What was the title of your position?
Technical Research Intern (Co-op)
3. When did you work there?
June-August/2004
4. What did you do?
I researched about the existing wireless technologies in the industry. Also what are the new upcoming trends and forecasts. I made presentations on my results and the application engineers used my work to guide them during technical meetings and for the development of their product. I also did some matlab testing for the development of the product.
5. How did you hear about this position?
Hotjobs.com
6. How does what you learned through this experience relate to your coursework and/or career goal?
I got very interested in being a communications engineer after my experience at beceem. As I worked there after my sophomore year so in my junior year I took three communication courses. Two of the classes being graduate level classes. My experience at Beceem helped me understand the material well and also to get good grades in those classes.
Also with experience in my sophomore year, a lot of companies were interested in hiring me after my junior year. I decided to go for a different field this time. Hence I will be a Technical Product Designer and Management Intern at Maxim Integrated Products. I think previous experience counts a lot.
7. How did this experience help you develop your skills and abilities, your personal qualities, your values and perceptions?
I saw how industry actually works. There is a lot of politics and one needs to be on top of there game to stay in competition. I learned how to tackle tough situations, how to communicate with design engineers and how to work in a team.
8. What did you learn about yourself that surprised you?
That even being younger than anyone else in the office, doesn’t mean that you know less than them.
9. How would you describe the value of this experience to other students?
I think it was very valuable as interned right after sophomore year and got good recommendations which helped me land another internship and hopefully will be beneficial for me while searching for a job.
10. What advice would you give to students interested in doing this?
Being a research intern early on in a students career is very helpful as you need to understand the theory before you apply it. Hence, its always good to meet people at the career fair and ask them about what kind of projects they are working on and show your interest.
