Stephen - Dublin Technical Intern
Summer 2005

I'm originally from Wexford, and I've been living in Dublin for 5 years now. I graduated from my Computer Applications degree in Dublin City University in November 2005 and I'm currently studying for a Master's Degree in Business. Shortly after, Extreme Blue ended in September 2005. I began work for IBM SWG on Workplace Collaborative Learning.

Why did you apply for the Extreme Blue internship?

Coming from a computing degree, working for a leader in the IT industry, like IBM, was always a goal. Extreme Blue promised an interesting opportunity to put what I learned in college into practice and to gain invaluable real world experience, through working on an extremely interesting project. Not only that, it was a great way to get to know the company and a lot of the great people behind it.

How do you think your background and experience prepared you for the internship?

My formal education was obviously helpful, but in a company like IBM it can only take you so far. In IBM, and during Extreme Blue in particular, success is only achieved through striving to achieve. Extreme Blue was a demanding internship, and I don't think I would have got as much out of it if it had not been for my long standing personal interest in computing. I think it was more this interest, and the interests and ambitions of everyone on our team that made our project so interesting and beneficial to us - and such a success!

What have you learned from your Extreme Blue experience?

The main thing I took away from Extreme Blue was quite surprising to me. Before Extreme Blue I have to say I was slightly ignorant of the business aspect of software and systems development and research. Extreme Blue taught me a lot about positioning these departments in a business, how technology fits into organizations like IBM, and how to position products and market the value of products to organizations. From a technical side, I got a good lesson in learning and thinking quickly from being thrown in the deep end of our Extreme Blue project, how a project team operates, and I got a taste of what is possible in a company like IBM where you're always working collaboratively with extremely talented individuals

Is there anything about the Extreme Blue program that surprised you?

The level of freedom we were given was shocking at first, but, in retrospect, if we hadn't have been given this we would never have accomplished as much as we did in such a short space of time. The cooperation, attention, encouragement and assistance we got from everyone we encountered was astounding, I think very few interns will get this level of support in any company in any industry. The realisation that we could actually do something that was worthwhile with our project on this internship was staggering at first - but we soon got used to that idea.