Interning at Ross Video.

Video: Ross Video Mini Essay - Justin Zhang

Fred Friendly, the visionary behind modern news, once said: ‘Our job is to give people not what they want, but what they don’t know they want yet.’ For this video, I know it's expected to provide a list of tasks and a ‘greatest hits’ reel. But as an intern, I realized that the most valuable thing I can give isn't a polished summary of my wins. It’s a look at my experience here, what I liked about the program, what I think can be improved, and a list of things I wish I knew on day one.

I’m Justin, a Master of Computer Science Student at Carleton University. And this is my mini essay on Interning at Ross Video.

Being in the Co-op program for two degrees now, I’ve gotten the opportunity to intern at 5 companies, and I have to say, one of the greatest strengths of Ross’s program is maintaining a consistent heartbeat of events and activities for students to enjoy throughout the term. From a Field Trip at their Iroquois Manufacturing Facility to their small but highly meaningful Donut Guessing Event. Their diversity of small and large, virtual and in-person events ensures the experience at Ross never dies, even for a second. Their teams know the perfect balance between providing just enough events so you always feel included and experience their true culture, yet not so many that you feel overwhelmed with work and play.

Even as a cloud infrastructure student working solo and fully remote on the Cloud Provisioning Services Team, the company still finds a way to project its inclusive culture through my screen.

Ross Video’s 'cultural heartbeat' isn't just a talking point; it’s a core strength that truly sets their program apart from others.

At the start of a placement, most Co-ops want to take something central away from it, a core project to showcase on their resume when applying for future jobs. Over the course of four months, I completed a healthy number of tickets for our Infrastructure as a Service platform, from front-end search features to setting up automated CI pipelines to fixing race condition bugs. Although the breadth of work was thrilling and substantive, none of my accomplishments revolved around a single project, a capstone.

While this isn’t the be-all-end-all, I believe Ross would benefit if centralized projects were pushed or encouraged whenever a Co-op joins a team. Even though it's not possible to enforce, as all teams function differently and operate on unique timelines, I write this as a gentle reminder that a dedicated project would have greatly helped me and potentially other interns at Ross Video.

Coming out of this term, I’ve come up with 2 pieces of advice that I think all interns should know before jumping into any work opportunity. The first one is a concept I call “Intern Immunity”. When you first start, you don’t know anything. Use this to your advantage to talk to anyone and ask any kind of question. Set up one-on-ones with everyone on your team and be bold with every question of yours. It’s what I did, and I would say it turned out pretty well for me. It’s better to ask an obvious question now than to ask a question 4 months down the line when people on your team expect you to know it. During this time, if you mess up or talk to someone well outside the scope of your team, you have the “I’m just a new intern" card to play. It’s a phase that isn’t forever, so make sure to capitalize on the window.

My second piece of advice is to rotate your questions among everyone on your team. I know there is a tendency to stick to one person, whether it is another intern colleague or an assigned mentor. But I find rotating who I ask questions to be a great way to get acquainted with everyone on the team, gain a diverse array of perspectives, and practice being mindful of everyone’s time and energy. Also, it means you can ask as many questions as you want and won’t feel guilty about asking too many or burning out a team member.

As the tech job market grows in competition, and students flood the tech industry due to the boom in AI, never take this opportunity for granted. It’s a door that doesn't stay open for everyone, and it's up to you as an intern to prove why you are someone they don’t know they want yet.

References

Ross Video (1974) Rossvideo.com. Available at: https://www.rossvideo.com.