Summer Job: What I Learned Working 6 Weeks in an Innovation Lab with Challenges Proposed by a Corporation

Have you ever imagined being immersed in a technology and innovation company in a big city for 6 weeks and being challenged by a giant in the Brazilian market!?

Well, this is the experience that the Cesar Summer Job - Curitiba region provided me as a Bachelor University student. Do you know what a summer job is?

About the Program: The Summer Job is a program that usually takes place during university summer vacations and sometimes during winter vacations. It aims to offer practical experience to students, identify talents, and provide a rapid experimentation environment for sponsoring companies that present real challenges to participating students.

Selection and the Intense Competition: The program has its own selection schedule, and the selection factors are not very clear. However, it works almost like a job interview conducted in several stages or like a scholarship selection with many competitors and a defined schedule from the start. In the edition I was accepted (2020.1), there were more than 600 applications from students of public and private universities from almost every state in the country, and all bachelor students were eligible to participate.

The selection of teams is based on the challenges presented and can include students from any Bachelor courses. In the edition I joined in, there was a great diversity of majors, such as an engineering student and a biomedical engineering student in another team.

Our winning team was formed and now had a new challenge in hands:

Program Edition: 2020.1

Challenge: Automation of safety inspection.

Sponsor: AES Tietê

Our team was sponsored by AES Tietê S.A., one of the largest power generation companies in Brazil, and consisted of 4 members.

Students from the courses of Business Administration, Economics, Design, and Computer Engineering. (in order)        

After 6 intense weeks developing a solution for the proposed challenge, I will share the 5 main lessons I learned throughout the program, which made me a more complete professional in the job market today.

First Lesson: Teamwork is a requirement, not an option.

During the development of the solution, there is great pressure and anxiety on everyone, after all, we are still university students with little experience. However, this is not the time to lose control, and the team needed to stay strong, remain calm, and with each step towards the solution, we gained confidence. Together! The lesson was clear: knowing how to work as a team and leveraging each member's diverse skills is what makes a winning team.

Second Lesson: Be creative and think "outside the box."

In our project, not everything went as planned, and we often had to insist on investigating the problem and talk a lot with the client. Stay determined and ready to do a "pivot," which is a term used to change direction in a project. You need to be dynamic and open to new ideas and not get stuck in a fixed viewpoint that limits the search for the solution or makes it less attractive. Sometimes you need to be creative and "think outside the box." Listening to others' ideas without judging can be challenging, but in the end, it is enriching.

Third Lesson: "Learn by doing."

"It is by doing that one learns to do what one must learn to do." - Aristotle

We always think we need to know everything and be completely ready to develop something, and this always prevents us from starting anything. But my tip is: start even if imperfect and slowly. In the summer job, we discovered how to learn while doing. The process is dynamic, and many things are learned during the process, and there is no "recipe for success" (after all, no one knows the solution). The ideal is to take action and learn in the process and not limit yourself. After all, who has ever entered the field making perfect plays? If you are self-taught like me, you might not have much difficulty in this aspect, but we always need to remember this crucial point for any professional.

Fourth Lesson: It's not enough to be good, you need to sell yourself!

The last stage of the program was to sell our solution to the sponsor in a 5-minute "elevator pitch," which is a kind of sales pitch.

It's not enough for your solution to be the best; you need to communicate and sell it! The great lesson of the program was to give me the opportunity to sell our team's solution to a "shark" (corporation). The feedback was very positive, and I believe we left our legacy for future editions and the sponsor! Our message was delivered with passion, as the people from Curitiba would say.

Fifth Lesson: Be grateful to others.

In our lives, opportunities come disguised as great challenges that we often call (problems), and we need to accept them to evolve. Nothing comes clearly and defined, and you need to face the challenge. Without the mentors and companies that offered the project, nothing would be possible. So be grateful, and even if everything does not go perfectly as imagined, think about how much you learned and developed throughout the program. I am only grateful to the team, organizers, mentors, and sponsors (all great friends) who made all this possible. Big hug.

This was my summer job, and I hope it has piqued your desire to participate and learn.

If you are interested in the program or need any tips, feel free to get in touch.

Best regards!