Abigail Williams: Cracking English Learning with Tech at Slang — TechGen Intern Spotlight
Abigail Williams is a recent graduate of UMass Amherst, and she applied for the internship at Slang through TechGen. She had a great experience during the internship, which has led to a full-time position. She sat down with us to share the story of her hiring at Slang.
What about Slang stood out when you were looking for internships?
I was forwarded an email by my linguistics professor saying that there was an MIT startup focused on teaching language at the professional level looking for a summer intern, and I thought “That sounds right up my alley.” And it’s in the Cambridge area, so it’s local, but it was the language teaching aspect that stood out. I’m interested in language teaching and learning,a good mix of those interests.
What’s your role at Slang?
I’m a content editor, so I deal with quality assurance and ensuring that all of the English content that we teach is accurate and efficient for learning.
Any highlights in your experience so far?
The job description was what drew me in, but even more,when I came here for my interview, I saw the views and the work environment — CIC is really great, and the people here are excellent to work with. I want to work with people that I like being around, so that helped me make the final decision to work here.
And working here has been great — the work is great, the people are great, the location is close enough to my house that I can commute. And my team provided a lot of onboarding documents and support that helped me get up to speed with the tech aspects of the job, which I had limited background in. It wasn’t really tech that attracted me, more language, so it was good to be given a foundation in the skills I needed and to be shown what I would be working on so that I could develop from there. I was very well integrated at the beginning and then once I was hired full time, the work was much the same. I was an intern in the summer, and then I interned during the fall semester in school, working remotely, and then I was hired full-time when I graduated in the fall. So I was able to work as an intern, both in the office and remotely, and then full time.
How was your experience using TechGen?
I scrolled through the website to see what other companies were available and the descriptions of the companies were very well laid out. The information about the companies was very clear. And I remember a few days after using the website I got an email from TechGen’s CEO saying “Hey! How is the internship search going?” It’s great to get in touch with people in the TechGen community.
What do you love about working in Boston?
So much! The city is well-connected via the subway system,. so you could go to Chinatown to eat, and then go kayaking across the bay, back to work There are also always people out and about, and a lot of international people around, which encourages me to practice my foreign language skills and talk to new people. The city seems like it’s always active. And Cambridge and Boston — I used to not know that there was a difference between the two, there’s a fine line (the Charles) and they are both interesting to explore. Being in the college area is cool too, because you can talk to people who might end up working alongside you one day.
Check out below for more inside scoop from Slang!
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