The Best Study Tour in Japan With HDE (by Xuxin)
Hey guys, wanna a deep dive in Tokyo? Here is your opportunity! Intern at HDE as a software engineer will provide you with the best practice for study tour in Japan! Welcome to HDE!
My name is Xuxin, and I’m pursuing my master’s degree in Carnegie Mellon University. Although I have been thinking about travelling Japan for a long time, this is actually I got such a good chance to Japan. My internship starts from June 25th and ends at August 10th, this 7-week internship teaches me a lot in Cloud Computing and gives me sufficient time to explore Japan. I’d say this is one of the happiest period in my life!
About HDE GIP
It is really a magic thing that how I met HDE. When I was just wandering in the Internet to see some news about Cloud Computing technologies, one website attracts me that the blogger said that he had a good experience in Japan doing a cloud-related internship. That link opens me a new world to HDE — the Global Internship Program.
Wait, that means I can get the experience in Cloud industry as well as traveling Japan? I’m in!
I made my decision immediately and started my application even I don’t know anything about the Go language. The first step for the application is taking a coding challenge. You can refer to the official website by searching “HDE global internship program”. However, I spent a whole day to learn how to write Go language. Sometimes I felt like John Snow that I know nothing! It is not easy for me but I made it after two-day effort.
Also, I was so lucky to pass the resume screening and interview. I felt so excited when I received the offer. Thanks to Yuri and Peter’s help since I caused too much trouble to you!
Location and Facilities
HDE’s head office located in Shibuya, which is a prosperous station with the statue of Hachikō. It’s easy for you find the office after 10-minute walk( or 2 mins bus). And you can find many delicious food around. Also, the 711( convenience store) on the 1st floor is another good choice if it is too hot outside.
The facilities in the office is awesome! Vendors for drinks, snacks, as well as coffee machine. You can find everything that you can imagine within the office, and also the something you can’t imagine — the one and only Dr. Pepper’s vendor in the world. You can even get free Dr. Pepper as you want!
Internship Experience
Work content
This internship will be a self-adaptive program with training and actual tasks. Especially for fresh hand. You may need some time to get accustomed to the developing style of HDE and acquire necessary skills for the following tasks. And your mentors will also need some time to know more about your abilities. You will be assigned different tasks according to your skill set and interest.
Colleagues
During this internship, you will be assigned a mentor per task. They will help you and you can consult them when you need help. Mentors are so kind that they are willing to help at anytime with patience. I’m very grateful about what my mentors taught me and we also keep in touch after the internship.
Interns
It’s lucky for me to have 4 interns this time. We not only help each other with the training and tasks, but also enjoy the food in Shibuya. Nice to meet you guys!
GIP Lunch
Do you believe in free lunch? You will be provided many “free” lunches in HDE. You’ll have GIP lunch, communication lunch as well as MTS beer bash. The word “free” has two meanings, one is free as “free beers”, another is referred to “freedom”. Guess which one you have in HDE? Neither! You need to provide “communication” for exchange!(copy from Ogura-san :-) Lunches are the best opportunities for you to chat with different people, you colleagues, managers. They are engineers, designers, sales people as well as HRs. You also don’t need to worry about where to eat, they’ll choose the most delicious food around office. Just enjoy your food and express yourself!
Japanese culture
I believe there are many people like me who are interested in Japanese culture. And this Global Internship Program will be the best chance for you to explore Japan in multiple dimensions.
Meals
The most famous Japanese food is Sushi and Ramen. There is no doubt that you can find the most traditional one is Tokyo. Maybe some people are not accustomed to raw food. However, Japanese people are crazy about raw food. Sashimi and Sushi and raw eggs are the best prove. You may also want to enjoy the broiled eel and the most interesting food for summer — Nagashi Somen.
Festival
Japanese is no doubt one of the countries that the traditional customs are best preserved. You can see many traditional festivals in the summer, like Tanabata , Obon and so on.
Weather
The summer in Japan is extremely hot and humid. That makes you feel hotter even the temperature is not very high. However, there will be some days in the summer that is cool with rains and heavy wind — it’s called Typhoon. You may also go through earthquakes in Tokyo. But don’t worry, these are not severe and that’s what pushed our company to the cloud! Treasure all your experience in life!
Fireworks
Fireworks are called Hanabi, which is a very important part of Japanese summer. Those activities are free and you can see many people dress in traditional way. You can both enjoy the fireworks as well as the Japanese traditional suits.
After-work activities
Board Games
Board games are definitely one of the most interesting part of the after-work activities. The board-game fans will hold the game every Wednesday. I used to be a guy who is already bored with the game — The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow. However, out colleagues refreshed my understanding of board game. They have tens of thousands of novel and interesting board games in stock. We even never played the same game twice!
Monthly Technical Session(MTS)
MTS is also an interesting activity in our company. During this session, our company will invite colleagues and interns to talk about the technologies that they are familiar with. You will hear many frontier technologies as well as technologies for fun. And you will enjoy the beer bash after the session!
Suggestions for candidates
Visa
Since the time cost for visa issuance is not accurate. Please prepare as early as possible. For Chinese applicants, there are more and more materials required by the embassy. And also, since the embassy requires some hard copy from HDE, it takes some time for our company to prepare and mail it. You may not want your schedule as tighten as mine(as I got my visa one work day before the departure date.) So please start prepare your application as soon as possible.
Accommodations
I have to say that find a ideal accommodation in Tokyo is kind of difficult unless you are willing to spend a lot. Sakura House is a good choice but you need to book your room earlier. Generally, one month before your arrival is the deadline.
Schedule
Since our company gives you a 90 days visa. They don’t restrict you the arriving and the leaving date if you don’t stay longer than 90 days. Note that once the air tickets are booked, you are not allowed to change the date or the tickets will expired. And you may not leave Japan during the internship because your visa is only for single entry. It is highly recommended that you have spare time before or after the internship. In that way you will have enough time to explore Tokyo.
