The first thing people ask when you mention being an intern at NASA is how did you land that? Then they quickly follow that up with and how much does it pay? I may not be able to share too much about the second part but I can definitely offer some insight into things like the interview process, the internship experience, and my takeaways.

How do you get to NASA?

First off, I’m going to surprise you by letting you in on a little secret. Getting an internship at NASA is probably like 10 times easier than getting one in silicon valley. Yep. You heard that right. I actually heard about the internship through my brother since he happened to make some small talk with a random stranger (aka my future mentor) at a local Starbucks. The man he met was trying to convince my brother to apply for this position but my brother knew nothing about coding at the time so he referred me instead. I applied, and in only a short few days I was asked to do a phone interview with the managers on the team I would be on. I can’t tell you what I was asked because I genuinely forgot most of the questions. One question that they asked will probably stay with me to the grave though: could I explain polymorphism. To this day, I forget exactly what polymorphism means but that’s because I’m not great with words. I specifically remember this question because I felt so dumb for not being able to remember a basic programming concept. The point here is…the interview was fairly straightforward. There weren’t any build a tree from scratch or detect if a string is a palindrome types of questions. Not long after that interview, I got an offer.

Did a build rocket ships?

Unfortunately, no. The location I was interning at focused on aerospace technology. The project, Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) Flight Data Portal (AFDP), was aiming to create a central repository for flight research data that could be accessed through a simple web-based platform.

What I did do during that time was surprisingly chaotic and slightly uneventful. NASA as a whole was an interesting space because while they used overbearing structure to plan projects, there was virtually no structure in place for the actual internships. Every intern’s internship experience would thus be determined by two variables: (1) how involved was their mentor and (2) how much self teaching did they want to do. I was unfortunately on a boat where my mentor was rarely around and I sometimes went days without seeing or speaking to him. I did however, have quite a bit of determination with making this space and time worthwhile for my career growth. Consequently, I spent much of my time googling various topics and taking the opportunity to learn things I was interested in at the time, like UI/UX design.

Was it worth it?

Definitely! Having NASA on my resume was a springboard that helped me land my next internship at Remix, where I have been working since. You can’t mention having worked at NASA and not get a little bit of a shock reaction even if you know deep down it’s not at all what most people would expect. Aside from the prestige, I don’t imagine I will ever find myself once again in such a privileged position so as to get paid to learn whatever I want. I spent so much of my time exploring ideas and even making playground web apps and got paid to do it! For someone looking to get experience and possibly explore which career path they want to go down within the world of software engineering, an internship at NASA can really do wonders. I may not have walked out a professional web developer but I certainly felt more competent and confident in my ability to pursue that as a career. For that confidence alone, it was most definitely worth it.

Citations

• Gibbs, Yvonne, and Kyria Luxon. “Logo: Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) Flight Data Port.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, 21 June 2017, https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/multimedia/imagegallery/logos_patches/ARMD_AFDP.html.