Each year, Hughes carefully screen resumes from applicants at top schools around the country, looking to fill a few dozen internship spots. This year, roughly 50 rising juniors and seniors joined the Hughes team for the summer, shadowing employees in our software engineering, hardware engineering, IT and service delivery groups. The leaders that manage the intern program strive to provide these students, who are pursuing degrees in a variety of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, with hands-on real-world experiences and an opportunity to grow professionally and personally. We want their time at Hughes to be interesting and meaningful. – and as we learned through an end of summer survey, many expressed that their favorite part of the experience was meeting and spending time with fellow interns and Hughes team members. Here’s what else our interns had to say about their experiences at Hughes.
What is one thing you’ve learned about yourself in this experience?
One thing I've learned is how to best approach a complicated problem. When I was first presented with this project, I was somewhat overwhelmed because I did not have much experience in this field and the project was complex. However, over the course of this internship, I have gotten better at breaking the entire project into manageable portions in order to make progress over time.
I have become better at breaking the problem down in to different sets. I have to be more inventive and take more initiative.
Organizing problems through a visual manner helps me find better solutions.
That I really like the human part of technology. I'm not sure anymore if I am the type of person that can sit in a room all day and code. I want to talk with client/customers and help them create something that they want.
I learned that I enjoy working in person with others, since it helps me feel engaged and motivated.
I feel much more confident in my ability as a programmer to grasp new concepts fairly quickly and apply them in my work.
I've learned what I look for in a career is a good team and a positive environment.
What did you find most interesting or exciting about Hughes?
The opportunity to apply the skills that I've developed in a real-world environment. Prior to this, I was never sure how the things we learned in school would translate to real-world scenarios.
As this was my first time witnessing the backend of a global satellite communications company, I was amazed to see the people-power and skill necessary to keep things running smooth. Props to the team!
I found it super interesting how the engineers take a product all the way from start to finish, not just segments of products, and get to eventually see their work in production.
Something that I found really cool was the sheer amount of data that is flowing through the network every day. If you think about all the terabytes of data being processed and sent into space, it is awe inspiring.
The engineering and software development that's behind the satellites and services is so interesting – this kind of technology never ceases to amaze me!
Why should someone apply for an internship at Hughes?
If you're looking to work on a project that you can define and have full ownership of, don't hesitate to apply for an internship at Hughes. You have the flexibility to choose how your finished product looks like, and it really pushes you to be creative in deciding the path you want to take. If you have ideas you want to explore in a business environment, you can do that here.
Hughes is a great place to work; the people here that I've met are so nice, and there is a good work-life balance.
You’ll get fast-paced, hands-on experience in software web development.
Hughes gives you a comprehensive project to work on that help builds technical skills as well as teamwork skills.
While it’s gratifying to know that Hughes delivers a valuable summer learning experience, we also welcome the chance to engage with and learn from our interns. They have a way of injecting a fresh sense of excitement and enthusiasm into our work. As this year’s interns head back to school, the entire Hughes team wishes them well in their future STEM careers. We are fortunate to know these future innovators behind tomorrow’s problem-solving technologies!