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Googlers Beta

December 19, 2008

The Student Has Become the Teacher
During a Google internship PhD student Sam Slee discovered the openness of the Google culture and found a way to become part of it.

Name: Sam Slee Department: Google Analysis Products Background: PhD candidate from Duke University working on Self-Reconfigurable Robotics. How it happened: I first wanted to come to Google because I was inspired by stories of a great company culture and their famed "Don't be evil" motto. I wasn't disappointed. During the course of my internship much of my work was about writing connections from my team's codebase to several other large, existing Google systems. That meant I had to learn a lot about these core, internal workings that most companies would try to keep hidden. But the Google culture is incredibly open. Even as an intern, I was able to read through documentation and source code for these important Google technologies. Whenever I came up with more detailed questions, there were plenty of Googlers that I could go to in person or by email who were very eager to provide help. That eagerness rubs off, and after a while I looked to start sharing all of the documentation and tutorials that I had written while learning about those Google technologies. I eventually found an intern in another office -- in another city, actually -- who needed to start working with a particularly big, internal system that I had written an online tutorial for. It took me 2 days to get that system set up when I first tried it. Following my tutorial, it took him about 2 hours. He was thrilled to say the least, and at that point I felt like I had contributed as a real part of the Google culture.
To learn more about how you can become a Google intern, please visit www.google.com/jobs/students/intern. We are now accepting applications for Summer 2009.
Posted by Jessica Bagley, University Programs Team