Around The World in 8 Weeks
by Sarina Xin
I’ve always wanted to travel the world. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been dying to go to Europe, Australia, Asia, you name it. I spent high school dreaming of studying abroad when I went to college. After coming to Berkeley, I looked into studying abroad, but unfortunately, I didn’t like any of the options available. During the fall of my junior year, I went to the SWE National Conference. That’s when I met a group of industrial engineers from United Airlines. Right off the bat, I hit it off with one of the engineers, bonding over our ratings of different airport bathrooms. About a week later, I received a phone call with an offer to work at United. It was the perfect alternative to studying abroad since airline employees get to travel for free on flights.
It was really scary at first to take the leap and commit to a six-month internship in Chicago. Did I really want to leave school for a semester? How many classes would I need to take per semester to graduate at the same time as my friends? Overall, there were a lot of factors to consider. Ultimately, I took the plunge and withdrew for the spring semester. I moved to Chicago and started working full-time for United’s Continuous Improvement Department in Willis Tower (sorry, Sears Tower for any native Chicagoans out there). As you might imagine, it was very intimidating at first. Not only was I working in a large department of about 80 industrial engineers, many of them with graduate degrees, Willis Tower is also home to a ton of other intimidating professionals in suits. I had never felt more out of place. Gradually, with the support of my managers and fellow interns, I grew into my role and found a natural rhythm. I went to work 5 days a week. I’d chat with my co-workers and take on new projects. For the other 2 days, I’d travel with my intern friends, trying to get seats on a plane. We travelled everywhere from Amsterdam to São Paulo. There was nothing more I could ask for; I loved my job and I got to see a new place every weekend.
About eight weeks into my internship, the city of Chicago went into shelter-in-place, and United employees were told to work from home. The airline industry went from booming one week, to practically dead the next. Suddenly, flights were empty and new protocols needed to be rolled out for health and safety. Continuous Improvement projects that were important last week moved to the bottom of the list. New projects for rerouting and aircraft cleaning jumped to the top of the list. On the weekends, my friends and I went from world travelers to couch potatoes. During the week, we worked from home and Facetimed during lunch breaks rather than meet up at the coworking lounge in Willis Tower. Within one week, my entire lifestyle, as well as my job, completely changed.
It wasn’t easy being quarantined in a city with no family and without the support system I usually had on campus, particularly when it came to work. In the office, even if I was shy, people would stop at my desk and strike up a conversation. However, in a virtual environment, I could go days without speaking to a coworker. I found myself wanting to be more engaged with my teammates, but struggling with how to do that because I was still kind of timid and uncomfortable with putting myself out there. Luckily for me, change was in the air.
When coronavirus transformed how the airline industry was operating, it was a pivotal moment for me. With everyone around me being pushed to think on their feet, I was inspired to leave my comfort zone and try new things. I attended a virtual game night and actually had conversations with my coworkers. I took on a project for designing the data tables for a much-needed bag analytics dashboard — a project requiring more technical skill than I was used to. I was thriving in this new environment and began actively speaking up and engaging with my team. Ironically, quarantine forced me to put myself out there.
My time away from campus empowered me to be confident and changed my self-image. Reflecting back on who I was a year ago (not to sound ridiculously cheesy), I’ve gone from someone who didn’t always believe they would have a place in corporate America to someone who truly believes she can someday run a company. All I needed was to leave the Berkeley bubble and realize that it doesn’t matter how I compare to everyone else around me: I define my own success. All in all, working at United was an invaluable experience. Travelling the world for eight weekends was amazing, but learning to own who I am was even better.
