Interning at Smart Design NY

 

 
Interning at Smart Design was one of the best things that have ever happened to me. So naturally it needs a blog post. I was extremely lucky to have had the chance to do it. I learnt a crazy amount and on top of that the people I met were second to none. So this post is a summary of what it was like and stuff...

I got my chance after degreeshow where an ex PDE graduate had left me a business card on my project area (cheers Jamie your a legend). Cutting long story short I emailed my portfolio and CV to him and about 7 weeks later I was standing in Manhattan within a design consultancy I have heard so much about.

It wasnt easy getting to Manahattan. I had to decide between a full time job offer at a large consumer electronics company to do it. I struggled to decide but as I had just graduated I decided to take the risk. When else are you going to have the chance to travel and work.

New York Baby!!

So on top of being able to learn from such a famous company it was also situated in such a  famous location. I just couldnt resist walking through Manhattan, living in Brooklyn, hanging out where all those hipsters go, basically doing all those cliche typical things.

I managed to find a place to live in Brooklyn specifically in Forte Green within a brownstone building. It was really nice and it was only about 50 minutes to work everyday. Everything looked like it was the movies lol. Furthermore, there was always something to do after work, I was never ever bored. It was so cool :)

The Work:

 
First day of work was SCARY, going to a place you have heard about so much about had left me quite nervous. In fact I don't think I fully settled in until about my 2nd month, thats when I felt I was bedded into the Smart way of things. 


Smart are so good with interns, you get treated really well and they train you in things you are not sure on. My approach to things was if I didn't know I would go and ask. Everyone there really knew their stuff so it was to my benefit to ask and learn, of which I did a lot of.

I got real responsibilities from the get go. I was lucky in a sense that when I got there they had started a new OXO project and I was thrown in with the team and my adviser was able to show me the ropes (cheers Charlie). From then on I got more work if I ever had nothing much to do, I just asked. But generally I was pretty busy.

Work was a combination of concept generation, development, some CAD and also a lot of time spent in the workshop building and exploring (I loved it!). I have always been a very workshop type person. You would be surprised by how far you get by just getting an idea into a 3 dimensional form and investigate. It just made working at Smart so much fun as they encourage building stuff all the time. The models makers were just legendary.

The People:
Everyone really knows their shit and were super talented at what they did. Its such a busy office with people doing stuff all the time but at the end of every week people finished work an hour early and we all have happy hour. A few drinks and some fußbal is something I really miss now. Its such a lively place to work at, the culture that they have in the office was really cool.

Hurricane Sandy:
I really did get the full experience working in New York. I even got to be in hurricane Sandy! That was a week stuck in the apartment waiting it out until the office was good to go back to.Couldn't believe it!

It was all a bit of a blur really. One day after work my flatmate just told me to get some extra supplies as there was some bad weather coming. At that moment I was thinking in my head WHAAAATTTT!? and then the image of the Day After Tomorrow just jumped into my mind lol. So I was like buying all sorts of extra supplies thinking we would be stuck in dark ages and probably end up having to trade tins of food for heat and shelter lol. But it wasn't that bad at all where I was.

The hurricane past over in a day or two and we were ready to go back to work but the office building had been flooded so that meant a week in the apartment and just doing a little bit of exploring. However when we all got back to the office it was freezing as the heating system was flooded. I remember it was so cold in the office I was struggling to type and use my mouse as my hands were just frozen. At that point I started to come up with ideas for how we could have self heated pens, keyboards and computer mice so we could work in the freezing office lol.

All Good Things Come to an End:
I have a natural tenancy to be over critical of myself as I'm a bit of a perfectionist. So when I got my internship review back I was really surprised at how well they thought I did. In fact they even offered to extend my internship!

In other circumstances I would have taken the chance to stay and fight for a full time job but that was not to be. My finances were shot to pieces. 5 years of Uni debt and a very scary overdraft that had payed for my internship was looming over me. On top of  all that I was given a full time job in a development consultancy back in the UK. All of which fitted my needs at the time given my families circumstances.

It wasn't easy leaving. It was by far the most awesome place I've ever had the chance of being at. In fact I was toiling over staying right up until the last 2 days of being in New York. In the end I just thought taking out another loan to stay for another 3 months that was not certain to get me a full time job offer was just a little too risky. So I decided to go with my head instead of my heart.

Overall it was the best experience a product design engineer could have. Getting to learn and gain insights into the approach Smart Design has on developing products has been so valuable. I now use what I have learnt from my experience at Smart every day at where I work now, which is a testament to how valuable my experience was.