Making the Most of It, Virtually

 

Pictured: Me on Pixar's campus in November 2020, aka before the pandemic

    

    When I heard I would be flown out to San Francisco for a final round of interviews at Facebook, I immediately thought -- maybe I can finally visit Pixar while I'm there! For context, most of my college friends had been able to see the campus in previous years, so I felt a little left out. Of course, I also generally wanted to see the campus for myself, catch up with some good friends, and get some goodies from the merch store! So, after my interviews wrapped up, I took a ~40 minute Uber ride to Emeryville. When I was there, I talked to a recruiter a little bit about future openings, as at the time I was set to graduate soon. While I flew back to Texas, I felt like there wasn't much chance I'd be working at Pixar anytime soon, but I was glad I finally got a tour of the campus and hung out with my friends.

    Little did I know! Just two months later, I'd be offered a summer internship at Pixar! It was a delightful surprise that caught me off guard. After all, Pixar, as the studio behind Inside Out, is indirectly the reason I fell in love with computer graphics and decided to major in computer science, so it really felt like I had come full circle. I was pumped to learn new things, and also, to a lesser extent, experience living in California, which I'd always wanted to eventually do even before my animation aspirations were born. Honestly, I remember thinking to myself, this is too good to be true! Turns out, in a way, I was right.

    You know the rest of the story -- immense historic pandemic hits, everything turns to chaos, yada yada. For the first couple of weeks, I was cautiously optimistic, especially due in part to how California seemed to be handling the outbreaks. However, as time went on, my good spirits shriveled and I mentally prepared for the worst. In early May, a couple of days before my virtual graduation from college, I got the call -- not a cancellation -- they decided to postpone my internship to the fall. Their motivations were simply that they wanted us to be present in the studio, which is something I, admittedly, wanted as well. I was relieved it wasn't cancelled, but after a month or so of the pandemic getting worse and worse, I realized it was highly wishful thinking to believe we'd be able to get into the studio in the fall.

    My suspicions were right, and sooner than later, I was contacted by the recruiters. Again, not a cancellation, but a transition to virtual! This wasn't what I was expecting! I figured they would opt to cancel the internship. I was extremely grateful for the decision, and it meant that I almost certainly would be able to go through with the internship. To this day, less than three weeks away from my start date, I am still very grateful for the opportunity, but also, I couldn't help but feel disappointed that I wouldn't be able to experience working at the studio in-person. In fact, watching their internship video on their web-page, which in normal circumstances would've probably got me really excited for what was ahead, instead made me feel very disheartened and, frankly, quite sad. 

    As my start date rapidly approaches, though, I'm making a real effort to make the most of this unique opportunity. I have lots of goals for the experience, including but not limited to:

  • Get virtual coffee/lunch with somebody in the studio I admire. 
  • Ask lots of questions, soak up every bit of knowledge I can from my peers.
  • Participate in as many virtual social activities as I can - step out of my comfort zone!
  • Work hard every day.
    Some of these may sound mundane, even expected -- but the way I see it, everything is a little bit harder and more awkward over Zoom, so nothing is given! While it's easy to mope about what could have been, and I've certainly done a lot of that during my empty summer -- I've found it's much more important to make the most of what I've got. Despite everything, I'm really excited, anxious, nervous, and happy to be embarking on this new adventure soon. Hopefully, I'll write up an update once the dust settles in November. :)



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