Yesterday, I drove out to Mountain View, where I’m spending the summer as a software engineering intern for Apple. And let me tell you… that’s a boring drive, haha. It took about twelve hours total from my parents’ house in South Jordan, Utah to the apartment complex in Mountain View, California. Along the way I made two stops: one in Winnemucca, Nevada (where the speed limit of the main road is a whopping 25 miles per hour) and another in Sacramento, California for gas. I averaged about 33 miles per gallon, which is pretty good for my car (a 2010 Nissan Altima).

The apartment is nice, but not posh. Apple offers interns the choice between corporate housing (the option I took) or a $1500/month housing stipend. Corporate housing is shared, so undergrads live in groups of four and graduate students in groups of two — and since I’m a BS/MS student, Apple categorized me as a grad student, which means I get a larger bed and don’t have to share my room.

The bedroom has a queen bed, a dresser, a nightstand, and a large closet. There’s no desk, but there is plenty of space so I brought my own from home. The company Apple contracts with to provide housing, National Corporate Housing (NCH), also provides linens and things. That was nice because I don’t own any queen-sized linens, and I wouldn’t want to buy some just for the summer. They also provided towels and some toiletries, such as shampoo, conditioner, and body wash (which works out since I forgot my shower amenities back home!).

The kitchen has utensils, glassware, plates, pots, pans, a refrigerator, a microwave, a dishwasher, a coffee maker, and an instant water heater, among a few other things. NCH left a few snacks and some coffee packets for us, although certainly not enough for the whole summer! Rumor has it the Facebook interns get more fully stocked kitchens, but I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of that and I’m really not too concerned about it! What I’ve got here is more than enough.

On top of all this, my roommate is super cool! He’s also interning for Apple for the summer. He’s doing his PhD right now — which is a little intimidating for me! But so far he’s been really nice and very fun to hang out with. I’m glad, because that was one of the big reasons I took the corporate housing: I wanted to live with somebody else and hopefully make a lasting friendship.

I don’t know yet what exactly I’ll be working on, but I’m on the information security team. As far as I can tell, I’ll have two main projects during the summer, each guided by a different mentor. I don’t know a lot about security yet, but I’m very excited to learn about it!

I imagine I won’t be able to talk about the specifics here very much. Apple tends to be pretty tight-lipped in general, and I imagine that the infosec team in particular will be very hush-hush. That said, I’ll do my best to write about what I can!

Other than that, there’s not much to report just yet. I’ve unpacked everything and put things away, and things are good so far! Stay tuned for more soon!