In my first intern blog, I provided some insight of what interning in the Palo Alto office was like. Following that, I shared a bit about my past professional experience alongside some of my current goals in my second blog. Now, I want to share a bit about what I have been up to with school and working out of the North American HQ in Newtown Sq, PA.
Balancing School and Work
I am finishing my English degree at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Some of you might be wondering, “Well, Liz how are you attending school in Pennsylvania but working from Palo Alto?” The simple answer is that SAP has flexibility. One of the many perks about working at such a large global company is that there are offices everywhere and people can work from anywhere. To be honest, even when I was working out of the Palo Alto office, most of my close colleagues that I worked with are located in Germany and on the East Coast. Moving back to school and working remotely and from the Newtown Square office was not a huge jump from what I was previously doing. I miss the part of the team that I was working alongside in Palo Alto, but my daily life and activities did not change much when I came back to school. Balancing interning and school has been a bit difficult, but my time management has greatly improved, and I realized that I just need to be proactive. Entering into finals, I realized that I needed to frontload a lot of my articles and work. I have adjusted my work timeline to match my school assignments so that I prepared a lot of work and worked more in the last few weeks to give me more time for my school assignments. I am putting in the same work and time but I just allocated more time to my internship mid-November. Also, I have found that when I work, I need to be focused on work and when I set time aside for school assignments, I do not let work intrude. Ensuring that school and work are separate has helped me organize my life. My team has been super understanding with my schedule, and I have gotten in a great rhythm over the last few months.
New Adventures in Newtown Square
Being able to work out of SAP’s United States headquarter in Newtown Square has been an amazing opportunity to network and meet new people. It has also really opened my eyes to what it is like to work in a sales office. One huge difference between the Palo Alto and Newtown Square office is the pace of the work environment. Everyone is constantly on calls and it is a very lively office with people constantly milling around. People are always coming in-an-out of the office, and the open workspace (I work here) is always busy. The difference between the Meeting people in the office was a bit difficult at first but thanks to my team I did start to meet a lot of people through connections.
My college also had a special career day at SAP that I participated in and I got to meet some great co-workers and other interns. I have a small group of intern friends that I get lunch with and attend events with. It’s great to share experiences and being able to relate to other students and peers my age that are also entering the work force. We have formed a support group, where we are constantly working through things going on in our lives whether they be work-related or personal. Getting to know my peers has been super fun and we always have a great time hanging out together whether it is at SAP events or outside of work. I also recently visited the Hudson Yard office in New York City which was beautiful. It had the most amazing view of Manhattan all around and the office had a very sleek and modern look.
Getting to Know Design
An update on my work is that I recently published my first product (SAP Screen Personas) related article. Through this writing process, I have learned a lot about user experience and design. SAP has a wide variety of products and services, but SAP Design specifically provides a consistent user experience for SAP software across platforms and devices. I find that SAP’s design system, known as SAP Fiori, is very innovative. SAP Fiori redefines enterprise user experience by focusing on user tasks and workflows and it also follows a modular design approach based on business roles, moving away from traditional monolithic transactions. As someone who doesn’t have an extensive background in design, it is easy to understand the business value of using SAP Fiori to create a consistent UX to produce a high work efficiency throughout SAP’s product landscape. I really enjoy my job and the products the unit works with because it is helping make people’s daily job more efficient and, ideally, even more enjoyable. One of the main objectives of the SAP Design Creative Lab team is to bring the SAP Fiori and product-related as well as personal stories to you in this community and our social media channels. The combination of both types of content really works in the realm of why I wanted to get into marketing and communication.
Balancing School and Work
I am finishing my English degree at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Some of you might be wondering, “Well, Liz how are you attending school in Pennsylvania but working from Palo Alto?” The simple answer is that SAP has flexibility. One of the many perks about working at such a large global company is that there are offices everywhere and people can work from anywhere. To be honest, even when I was working out of the Palo Alto office, most of my close colleagues that I worked with are located in Germany and on the East Coast. Moving back to school and working remotely and from the Newtown Square office was not a huge jump from what I was previously doing. I miss the part of the team that I was working alongside in Palo Alto, but my daily life and activities did not change much when I came back to school. Balancing interning and school has been a bit difficult, but my time management has greatly improved, and I realized that I just need to be proactive. Entering into finals, I realized that I needed to frontload a lot of my articles and work. I have adjusted my work timeline to match my school assignments so that I prepared a lot of work and worked more in the last few weeks to give me more time for my school assignments. I am putting in the same work and time but I just allocated more time to my internship mid-November. Also, I have found that when I work, I need to be focused on work and when I set time aside for school assignments, I do not let work intrude. Ensuring that school and work are separate has helped me organize my life. My team has been super understanding with my schedule, and I have gotten in a great rhythm over the last few months.
SAP NSQ Holiday Party
New Adventures in Newtown Square
Being able to work out of SAP’s United States headquarter in Newtown Square has been an amazing opportunity to network and meet new people. It has also really opened my eyes to what it is like to work in a sales office. One huge difference between the Palo Alto and Newtown Square office is the pace of the work environment. Everyone is constantly on calls and it is a very lively office with people constantly milling around. People are always coming in-an-out of the office, and the open workspace (I work here) is always busy. The difference between the Meeting people in the office was a bit difficult at first but thanks to my team I did start to meet a lot of people through connections.
My college also had a special career day at SAP that I participated in and I got to meet some great co-workers and other interns. I have a small group of intern friends that I get lunch with and attend events with. It’s great to share experiences and being able to relate to other students and peers my age that are also entering the work force. We have formed a support group, where we are constantly working through things going on in our lives whether they be work-related or personal. Getting to know my peers has been super fun and we always have a great time hanging out together whether it is at SAP events or outside of work. I also recently visited the Hudson Yard office in New York City which was beautiful. It had the most amazing view of Manhattan all around and the office had a very sleek and modern look.
Getting to Know Design
An update on my work is that I recently published my first product (SAP Screen Personas) related article. Through this writing process, I have learned a lot about user experience and design. SAP has a wide variety of products and services, but SAP Design specifically provides a consistent user experience for SAP software across platforms and devices. I find that SAP’s design system, known as SAP Fiori, is very innovative. SAP Fiori redefines enterprise user experience by focusing on user tasks and workflows and it also follows a modular design approach based on business roles, moving away from traditional monolithic transactions. As someone who doesn’t have an extensive background in design, it is easy to understand the business value of using SAP Fiori to create a consistent UX to produce a high work efficiency throughout SAP’s product landscape. I really enjoy my job and the products the unit works with because it is helping make people’s daily job more efficient and, ideally, even more enjoyable. One of the main objectives of the SAP Design Creative Lab team is to bring the SAP Fiori and product-related as well as personal stories to you in this community and our social media channels. The combination of both types of content really works in the realm of why I wanted to get into marketing and communication.
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