Induction Day

JULY 29TH

The day where it all starts. 
I enter the CHQ building and walk up towards the Dogpatch Labs excited and nervous, as I try to get my boggled mind together. As I near my destination, I spot a girl and her mam walking in the same direction as me, looking a little confused. I asked if she's doing the Teen Turn program too, and a few seconds later me and her  found ourselves chatting away and awaiting the rest of the girls. 
The lovely and welcoming Teen Turn ladies provided us with free smoothies which was a kind gesture and as more girls were arriving, more smoothies were taken, and more excitement (and of course nervousness) filled the room. 

What do you get when there are 14 nervous girls in a room, half ready (at this point) to put themselves into the world of tech??
"Getting to know each other" exercises!! (well kind of, if you know what I mean) Joanne, who was one of the speakers at the induction day, got us all our own partners, and each pair was given a newspaper... Now listen to this, we were told to fold the paper each time and get both feet, of me and my partner (Shauna) on the newspaper, with our feet touching nothing else but the newspaper! So it was challenging to pull that off when the newspaper bit was the size of my hand, but holding onto your partner helped. It was actually really fun though I have to say. 

"Tech world here we come!"
(we didn't really say that..)

  

The rest of the day was filled with talks and information, like how to act in an office environment, cool facts about IT in the world today, some of the jobs in IT (eg. back end engineer, see I remembered) the top women who are rocking tech at the moment and much more.
Part of the talks were by "HAYS" who are a recruitment agency in Dublin. We also learned how to properly edit Youtube videos with Vanessa, one of the speakers, the other speakers were Niambh, Joanne, HAYS, and lets not forget our wonderful iPhonegrapher, Rachel who captured some of our memories.
 I'm finding myself write a lot here so I'll get to the last part now. The part where it all really takes a headstart..Meeting our mentors, DUN DUN DUN. Joanne gave us some tips on how to approach our mentors through a little show of hers with a bitta' acting, it was enjoyable and we were all ready to do it. Also, we got free Teen Turn shirts! Yep, there's me already taking selfies with it..

With a bit of communicating with different mentors here and there, I finally found my mentor, Christine and Andrea representing Globoforce, 2 lovely women who were very excited to work with me and my partner. Then Becky came along, and apparently we were assigned to the same mentor! That was pretty cool and coincidental as she was the girl I met as soon as I entered the building. I guess everything happens for a reason, right? (cheesy I know)

So lets see how the next 2 weeks will go, and lets hope I won't walk into the wrong building or something like that.

I'll let ya'll know in a few days x
  

Day 9

AUGUST 12TH

So, two weeks already. I guess time really does fly in when you're enjoying something. The day started off with me and Becky showing a powerpoint presentation to the HR Manager, Business Systems Group Manager and Business Analyst who all took care of us the most whilst on our experience. We displayed to them what we learned over the past two weeks and there's no doubt we used the bouncing animations for our slideshow, cause who can ignore the fun and liveliness aspect of that? Spice it up a lil' bit!

Last lunch with the girls today *frowns behind screen*
It was full of smiles and laughter from the point where we awaited the food until we left the building. It honestly didn't feel like our last lunch with them, so I guess we filled the room with high spirits and vibrancy. I ordered a Calzone pizza for the first time, have you ever tried eating a huge folded piece of pizza? It was delicious, but you know something was up when even the server joked about the Calzone getting the best of you!

I can honestly say, for this being my first work experience I ever took part in, I can already tell that it will be the most memorable and useful work experience I encountered.
I came in completely unaware of the doings in an IT company, the many possible meetings I attended, and definitely the most welcoming and friendliest people I've met.
I came out now with skills I have achieved and improved. Working in a team alongside with Becky (who I now call a close friend), and performing tasks given by our mentors really pushed me to be more proactive and efficient in the workplace. I got to see how interaction flows through a company and how the different teams work together and make sure they all understand eachother. I learned this particularly new concept called the "Crazy Eight Sketches" it's a way of generating design ideas, like this. (not my photo)

So from all these things together and my possible career paths of music, psychology  or IT, this experience yet again will have helped me know what it's like inside such companies, and the different jobs they consist of, assisting me in choosing my real life career path.
I'm so happy that I was offered the chance to pioneer Teen Turn, and possibly inspire other girls with my blog to battle against the typical gender stereotypes, THANK YOU TEEN TURN!
 *here comes the girls*

 'And guess who didn't get lost in the end?

        Going to miss these amazing people *sad face Sarah*