After one year the practical training of our intern Mareike is going to end this week. Immediately after this she will start the studies in information management at the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern at the campus of Zweibrücken. In order to give you an insight into the working life of an intern at the Robot Makers GmbH, we asked Mareike to summarize her working life for us. Finally, we thank Mareike for her commitment and dedication for the Robot Makers GmbH and we wish her much success and fun for the upcoming studies and her later professional life.
The times has now come: My one year internship at the Robot Makers GmbH is almost over. On September 2014, I started an one year internship at the Robot Makers GmbH in Kaiserslautern for obtaining the advanced technical college certificate. On that occasion my biggest fear was to get only a few or unimportant jobs. In no case I wanted to just serve time. I wanted to gain as much experiences as I can to prepare myself for the studies in the sector of information management.
These worries were taken away on the first day of work. Directly after I stepped into the office of my boss, he showed me my new working place and gave me information/auxiliary material for the handling of the data processing on the computer. The company mainly uses with Linux, and the document storage (keyword: version control) is very complex in comparison to other companies. For this reason, my first task was to get informed in the internet and to create some tutorials for the prospective employees. So: Don’t be afraid, new employees of the Robot Makers GmbH, thanks to my “recipes”, the complex topic is no big deal anymore!
On the basis of the fact that I was at the secondary school in the advanced course of informatics where I learned how to write computer programs I soon wrote some programs for the Robot Makers GmbH. I had the choice between using C++ (some knowings) and Perl (no knowings) to write my computer program.
Despite of having no experience with the language, I was more interested in programming with Perl – with the note to my boss that I will then often need some tips and advice. Nonetheless my wish was accepted and I started writing my first program using Perl.
Every time I needed some help, Dr. Hirth patiently gave me some tips how to solve my problems. The direct solution was never given – because of the reason that you can better understand what the fault was, when you have solved it by yourself. Even though it required more time – all the more I learned. Thanks a lot for your patience Jochen Hirth!
After three months and some small programs later, an internal database for the Robot Makers GmbH should be programmed to improve the purchasing process and the storage. As a result the responsible employee should be relieved. Personally by my side at this demanding task: the CEO Dr. Leroch.
Even in the run-up, it was clear that I won’t be able to finish this program. However it was no problem, because Mr Leroch supported me daily and donated a lot of his precious time. Therefore he always had a hunch what has to be done next without becoming acquainted with the program code again and again.
After three more months I expressed the wish to get more involved in the sector of marketing & distribution. On the very next day my wish became true. Mr Sauer supervised me in the matter of information management and Mr Schächter in the sector of marketing & distribution. A great advantage here: for the reason that Mr Sauer visited the same University that I am going to visit, he gave me tasks I will be confronted with at my studies. So I prepared some BPMNs (Business Process Model and Notation) and took part at various meetings.
Mr Schächter accepted the “main support” to secure no idle of work. I was fully integrated in the construction of the new homepage and wrote some articles for it. In addition I was allowed to participate at the fair SENSOR&TEST in Nuremberg.
All in all I got the chance to work with every single employee of the company, but if I would also refer to this, I would never come to an end of this article. I thank you very much for this wonderful time in your very pleasant working environment and wish you all the best for your company – the Robot Makers GmbH!
