I survived the first two days of my internship! Day one == free food all day long. The morning started with a welcoming introduction of the company. The second part of the morning Human Resource advised the interns of the do’s and don’ts of how to act in the corporate world. It was all pretty common sense stuff. It boiled down to: dress appropriately, think before you speak, and don’t sluff off. Easy enough, right?

The real excitement started in the afternoon when all of the interns were released to their mentor and manager. I was placed in the mobile development unit. I’m going to develop for the iPhone and iPad all summer. 🙂 Furthermore, I’m going to spend about two thirds of my time in Bloomington, IL at State Farm’s Corporate South campus. The other third of my time will be in Champaign, IL at State Farm’s Research and Development Center at the University of Illinois’ technology park.

This summer I am a project leader for an innovationREADY project, which includes guiding a group of interns that will develop software to help Human Resources recruit potential employees at career fairs. The first aspect of the project is to build an iPad app which will collect information from students electronically, instead of using paper and pencil. The other facet of this project is to brainstorm and potentially prototype apps for the iPad that may help various State Farm employees from HR to insurance agents, alike.