Set to begin his college career at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo this fall, Spencer Floyd reflects on his three years as a remote test intern at Aruba’s Roseville location. Sylvia Ruiz, Aruba’s university and HR program manager, chats with Spencer about his love of Kit-Kats and how he created his own home enterprise network.
Sylvia: Why did you choose to apply for the internship at Aruba?
Spencer: I’ve been an intern here for three years. That first year, I knew I wanted to go into tech somehow, but I had no idea where. My computer science teacher in high school recommended the internship to me, even though I had never thought about getting a job at HPE. I applied, but I didn't get in that year. I applied again after my sophomore year, and I got accepted. I've been working here every summer since.
Sylvia: How did you prepare for your internship before arriving?
Spencer: What most prepared me was my interest in computers. I like to mess around with them whenever I get the opportunity. If I think of something that I want to do on a computer, I figure out how to do it. I think that really helped me stand out and get this internship.
Sylvia: What group do you work for? What are some of your day-to-day responsibilities?
Spencer: I work in the remote test lab, which has tons of switches in it. As a remote test intern, I work on maintaining and troubleshooting all of the infrastructures in our lab. A lot of my day-to-day responsibilities come from users having trouble with equipment, and we'll then help them troubleshoot. Last summer, I wrote a program that made it easier for other people working in the remote test lab to locate devices in the lab, because it's such a big lab.
Sylvia: Are you working on any long-term projects?
Spencer: The project I’m working on is a monitoring program, and it's going to keep tabs on all of the devices in the remote test lab. It will constantly contact each device, get its status, make sure it's in a healthy condition, and then report all of that information back on a dashboard. Any worker in the remote test lab will be able to go to that dashboard and see the device status. If any devices are not performing well or need some kind of attention, then they'll know.
Sylvia: What intern event are you most excited about? (It may not have happened yet!)
Spencer: I like a lot of them, but the one that I’m really excited about is the Escape Room. I haven't been able to do that in the last few summers because I was busy that day or out of town. I'm hoping that this year I’ll be able to go and experience it.
Sylvia: What has been your favorite memory at Aruba so far?
Spencer: My favorite memory is getting my program to work last year. All devices in our lab have an IP address, but just knowing that IP address doesn't really tell you where it is in the lab. The program I created somewhat accurately locates the device in the lab. Once it’s located, you know what general area to walk to in the lab. Our lab has 18 rows and around 15 racks of switches per row, so the program would be really helpful.
Sylvia: What person (or group of people) has been the most inspiring mentor for you and why?
Spencer: The other people that work in the lab have been great mentors for me. We have a meeting every Friday, to just hang out, talk about anything, and just bond with each other basically. They're really helpful with whatever I need. There have been times where I’ve made mistakes with the network and prevented the developers from doing their tests, but the developers have been understanding and have shown me how to fix it. That's been a really cool experience because they're really helpful, and I've learned a lot from them and from our lab.
Sylvia: What is one thing you learned about yourself that surprised you during your internship?
Spencer: I’ve really begun to like working with networks and networking equipment. I actually built my own home network because of the experience I've gained, and my home network is now like an enterprise network.
Sylvia: How would you describe the corporate culture at Aruba?
Spencer: Everyone here is very motivating. They motivate you to get your stuff done, but in my lab, it's also very relaxed. They don't get on you for messing stuff up, and they're really encouraging. I can't speak for departments outside of mine, but as far as my department goes, they're awesome.
Sylvia: What have you enjoyed most from working at Aruba and what are some favorite takeaways?
Spencer: I love Aruba because I get to work on projects that are going to make a difference. I actually get to work with the equipment and programming. As for favorite takeaways, I've learned a ton about networking and programming.
Sylvia: What is your ideal future career path?
Spencer: I'm definitely going into technology somewhere, but I'm not exactly sure where yet. I'm really interested in networking and programming, but I'm also interested in AI which I haven't really done anything with. I’m studying computer science at college, and I chose that major mostly because it will provide me the opportunity to get exposed to a lot of different topics in technology.
Sylvia: What is one thing most people don’t know about you?
Spencer: I like to go running, that's always really fun.
Sylvia: What is your favorite item from the snack room at the Roseville campus?
Spencer: The Kit-Kats. They have these, not your normal Kit-Kats where there are four separate bars, but it's one big Kit-Kat bar. Those are amazing.
Check out our previous intern interview, and look out for more blogs on our 2019 Meet the Intern blog series!
