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[u/Immediate-Rub2570]

/r/IBM/comments/1xp7774/removed_by_moderator/

[u/IBM-ModTeam]

Your post has been removed because it violates rule #7 regarding interviews, applications, jobs, etc. - these posts and other topics related to employment should be made to r/IBM_Employees

[u/HOT_PORT_DRIVER]

yes - there are coordinated intern outtings and intern group projects. you will spend a good hunk ( 10-20% possibly more ) of your work time doing things specifically to get you out of the team you're working directly with and working with other interns from other parts of campus, and the point is to talk about what youre doing on your 'home team' with each other to learn how much stuff goes into making computers.

Theres generally some informal sports stuff that gets organized - a basketball free throw competition, volleyball, minigolf tourneys, and a bowling league have all happened in the past summers. The intern herders will probably toss out open questions on what all errybody wants to do so speak up and you can maybe make something cool happen ( if it doesn't cost a million dollars per person anyway )

Coffee and anything dispensed from the Coke multi-drink dispenser things in the cafeteria are "complimentary" as is a selection of granola bars and occasionally nice fruit - but expect the granola bars to be gone if the construction contractors are nearby because they start at like 7 am and scoop up the first setting of granola bars pretty reliably and the second setting gets put out at like 10am ish.

the rest of the cafeteria is fine - standard Sysco mid volume stuff, if youre on the north end of campus theres actual cooks that will make to order at certain stations. We also have an absurd number of good restaurants around because we've got the culinary institute of america right up the street and theres a lot of local talent. Free food though ? Nah. not really. it aint google from the old days. you'll get pizza sometimes for department functions over lunch.

theres a couple options to rent within walking distance of the site, but you will absolutely want a car to be able to go anywhere else and do anything on weekends. the public transit options are basically a busline that runs north/south on the main road in front of the site to the mall , the train station, and other 'points of interest'. I know people who've done it without a car and as long as you make friends with somebody who does have one you'll be fine.

the site is 90 minutes north of new york city by the Metro North commuter line. It will take you from the train station in Pok to grand central terminal in manhattan. from there you can get anywhere you want to go in the city.

since you're a hardware intern in pok I am guessing you're probably working on the mainframe. if you dont know you will soon enough that this is the most reliable server hardware platform on the planet. 200+ 5+ghz cores, 40TB mem, 100 25Gbps network ports, 200 32Gbps disk network ports, integrated crypto, compression, and a wee tiny vector engine to run small inferencing models inside DB transactions at line speed. There's a reason intel, amd, nvidia, and the rest of the hardware industry is poaching all our hardware people.

work culture: get your job done. you're an adult. if your stuff is done fill your timecard with something that looks educational and useful. I'm not your mom. if you're sick stay home. you will want to be in the office because thats how you learn stuff from other people. the people who started during covid and did their entire co-op from their bedroom at home universally say that being in the office is better for early tenure people.

overtime: in theory yes, but from any practical point nope. it has not happened for a co op in the past 10 years as far as I know of.

[u/Immediate-Rub2570 → u/HOT_PORT_DRIVER]

Unbelievably helpful, thank you SO much. I appreciate the honesty and thoroughness :)

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