Student Feature

Remember 2021? The vaccines arrived, the summer olympics finally happened in Tokyo, Joe Biden became president and Jeff Bezos went to space. Most significant moment for my friends though? BTS spoke and performed at the UN. For those who lived under a rock, BTS, the seven-member K-pop sensation, was the biggest music group in the world until their mandatory military service enlistment. By some estimates, their contribution to the South Korean economy is around USD 5 billion per year or “0.5% of the country’s entire economy”. My point is, they were everywhere and especially as someone who grew up in Asia, all my friends loved them. ...

Overview My name is Helen, and I was an Explore intern at Microsoft the summer after my first year! The Explore intern role is a 12-week program designed for first- and second-year undergraduate students to explore two core tech disciplines—Software Engineer and Program Manager—at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Continue reading to find out more about my experience with landing the opportunity, my time as a Microsoft Explore intern, and my personal tips/advice/takeaways. ...

Hey there! I’m Rue. In the summer after my second year, I worked at Microsoft as an Explore intern. I was on the Bing ads team in the Seattle headquarters for 12 weeks. My internship experience was a bit unique compared to other explore interns as I did 6 weeks of Product Management, 4 weeks of Data Science and 2 weeks of Software Engineering. Pre- application process: I heard of the program in my first year and applied, only to be rejected a couple f weeks later. I looked up other Explore interns on LinkedIn, looked through their experiences before this internship to understand what I was missing and worked on ways to gain those experiences. ...

The largest hackathon in Canada is Hack the North, hosted by the University of Waterloo. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend it this year for its 10th anniversary, the weekend of September 16th, 2023. Hack the North is a 32-hour hack, starting at midnight on Friday and ending at 8 am on Sunday. Pre-Hacking As with most hackathons, applications for the event are done prior to the event. I applied in August and received notice of my acceptance in early September. I was lucky to know other computer science students at UofT (Ari, Kaylee, and Rudy) who were attending so that we could build a 4-person team in advance. ...