Even at a video game company, people can run the risk of getting bored of doing the same tasks over the course of time. I’ve heard and read that when employees get the chance to complete side projects of their own suggestion, they feel more empowered and more connected with their job.
To make a long story short, I’m now in charge of starting up the software engineering co-op program at my company. Many, many moons ago, I was in the co-op program at UBC. It was a great program for me to be in. Not only did it give me relevant summer employment, I also learned what type of jobs I really despised. Most importantly, it also taught me the great influence a suitable mentor can have on young engineer. I promised myself that if I ever was in a position to “give back” to the co-op students, so to speak, I would.
I pitched the idea to several higher-ups last week and I got positive reactions all around. They even seemed pretty confident with my abilities to start the program off in the right direction. In the last several days, I’ve been in touch with co-op offices at science and engineering at UBC. It all appears to be coming together so far. I’m also hoping to make a presentation on Friday to upper management about how we’re going to proceed. This may seem strange but I’m really looking forward to talking to all these people. I love making presentations. I only learned how to use Powerpoint in 2004. Thanks for the lesson RW!
Anyways, I’m quite excited about co-op at the company and while it’s fun to write code, this will be a good side project for me.