Solving the World’s Toughest CFD Problems

One of our summer interns, Lizeth Anaya, writes about her experience at Flow Science. Lizeth recently graduated from Española Valley High School with a 4.0 GPA and has just begun her first semester at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

My goal after graduating high school was to find an internship within my field of study, Technical Communication. I hoped for the best and submitted my resume and cover letter to John McDermon, the Los Alamos Employees’ Scholarship Fund scholarship manager. He then referred me to Flow Science and a few weeks later I had an interview. I was offered the eight-week internship as the marketing intern and my start date was June 12th. The process from start to finish was easy and I was always asked for my input when making decisions about my schedule or projects I’d be working on. During these eight weeks I met some of the most dedicated people. Many of my co-workers volunteered their time to help and train me. My mentor, Amanda Ruggles, introduced me to multiple concepts within marketing but never limited me to that and always looked for engineers willing to work with me. Here are my experiences at Flow Science week by week.

Week 1

I met my co-workers, they were nice and welcoming. I settled into my desk and was introduced to some of my projects. Flow Science was preparing for an Open House to connect New Mexico’s tech companies, non-profit groups, academic institutions and political leadership. The first project I worked on was the Open House guest list. Another one of my projects was the Teaching Assistance (TA) project which was assigned by Adwaith Gupta, a CFD engineer. For the TA prospecting project, I researched professors who may benefit from using FLOW-3D in the classroom. If students learn FLOW-3D in school it is easier for them to transition into the industry knowing how to use CFD software. The first week also happened to be the most exciting because I was invited to a Ping-Pong Tournament and to play tennis.

Week 2

I was introduced to multiple platforms that the company uses to communicate and track progress on projects. Adwaith volunteered his time to train me in the basics of JIRA, an agile development project management system. He showed me everything I’d need to know in order to track my projects. Flow Science also has a branch in Colombia for which I translated some brochures from English to Spanish. Some engineers from different branches put together a User Manual for FlowSight and I started proofreading it. I also helped Amanda with MailChimp, an email marketing platform. The World Cup was on and the office gathered at the cafe every day at noon to watch the game and eat lunch (my favorite part of the day).

Open house registration interns
Greeting guests with Ruendy at the Flow Science Open House.

Week 3

I played tennis with my co-workers: Karthik, Adwaith, and John. John and I (but mostly John) beat them in a doubles match that ended in a tie-break. On Tuesday, we were preparing for the Open House. I updated the RSVP list and made a sign in sheet. I was introduced to WordPress, a content management system, and the behind the scenes of the company website. In WordPress, I worked on forms and set up conditional notifications. Mexico was eliminated from the World Cup and the next couple of days were…rough (lol).

Week 4

My week started with changing thumbnails on all the webinars through Wistia, an online video hosting service. I also got an intro to Adobe Photoshop, which I used to modify the thumbnails. At lunch, Colombia lost and I cried at my desk afterward. I went on JIRA and saw that an issue was created, “Create LinkedIn account.” I decided to update my existing account since I had created one while looking for jobs in high school. The Open House was on Friday, I steamed tablecloths and printed sign in sheets. I also met some of the other interns that day, Ajit and Ruendy. Ruendy and I were in charge of the registration table that afternoon.

Week 5

C++ training with Edgar was fun and challenging. I finally wrote code that I could actually build. Harold from Colombia reviewed my translation of the Lost Foam Casting brochure and made some comments which allowed me to translate the rest of the brochures. Engineering Spanish is harder to translate than regular Spanish, but I used www.flow3d.co as a resource to make it easier.

Week 6

The World Cup is over. On Monday I had the opportunity to meet the President of New Mexico Tech, the university I will be attending in the fall. The first assignment of the week was to review all C++ concepts so that I can start on the GUI translation project. A couple lines of code were giving me a hard time on the practice assignment Edgar gave me. Amanda asked me to make some reservations for an upcoming sales associates meeting and like the distracted human being that I am, I set the arrival times to three in the morning. So I called and made the change to FIVE different reservations. I also started writing this blog that you’re reading right now.

Week 7 & 8

The last two weeks I wrapped up some projects. I added a chain selects add-on for the forms on several of the websites. Edgar sent over the translation project and I wrote some of the code for it. Everyone in the office met Congressman Ben Ray Lujan and it was an awesome opportunity for us interns. Amanda took some coworkers and I out for lunch, it was fun and very nice of her. Definitely a good way to end my internship.

Lizeth meets Congressman Ben Ray Lujan
Saying hello to Congressman Ben Ray Lujan

My experience at Flow Science was positive and encouraging. The projects were relevant to my major but I was also introduced to other projects in different fields. While working here I learned that I actually like coding and it’s not a headache or a foreign language. My internship was fun and challenging. Now it’s the end of the summer and I move out of my parents’ house in two weeks. As I start the next four years at New Mexico Tech I am confident because of the tools I’ve acquired here.

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