Ever wondered what it’s like to intern at Blur? 

Curious what types of projects our interns get to work on? 

Today we’re talking with Anna, an electrical engineering intern, about her experience this summer and the things she learned along the way. 

Julia

Anna, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? What’s your role here at Blur? 

Anna

I’m a grad student at NC State studying electrical engineering. And I was an intern this summer at Blur and decided to stay on part-time to just help out wherever it was needed. 

Julia

So how did you hear about Blur? 

Anna

So during my internship search in the spring of last year, I was just kind of looking on all the basic job sites, looking on Indeed or LinkedIn, and then I actually looked on EPAC, which is NC State’s career development website. I saw a posting for Blur, and then did a little bit of research and thought it sounded like a cool company, so I applied after that. 

Julia

What was the thing about Blur that stood out to you that made you decide out of all the internships you had seen or looked at or job postings, this is the one you wanted to go to. 

Anna

Yeah. So the job description was probably the first thing that led me to Blur because I was like, this sounds like it’s right up my alley because it was relevant to medical devices, which I’ve always been curious about and wanted to work in that industry. But then just doing more research about the company, I kind of found some old YouTube videos that have been posted, introducing Blur and what they do and some of their projects. And I thought they all sounded really interesting. So I just applied and here we are. 

Julia

What areas did you get to work on this summer in your internship? What areas are you working in now? And was there anything that was sort of surprising to you about that or areas you got to work in that you weren’t expecting to? 

Anna

Fortunately I was able to work in a lot of different areas, specifically the research and development area, kind of the upstairs building, but I got to work a lot on one specific project. So it was kind of surprising how much I got to follow that project. I got to see all the different updates and revisions and all of the testing that went into doing everything. And that was unexpected, but exciting.

Julia

That’s cool that you were able to follow a project from the beginning and see its completion through your summer here at Blur. 

Anna

Yeah, it definitely gave me a newfound appreciation for what goes into a medical device, just knowing like how many like hours of work go into even something that seems simple like a software update or a design change and all the testing and of course all the documentation that accompanies it, but have a newfound appreciation for how much work goes into it. 

Julia

So you said you interned through the summer and then you decided to stay on throughout the school year sort of part-time. What made you decide that you wanted to continue working and interning here? 

Anna

I think the biggest thing was probably my involvement in that one particular project, just knowing it was going to be continued and knowing that I had learned a lot about it and felt comfortable with the project to be able to help out more of a part-time role during the semester. But also, I just really liked my time here and the community was great. So I felt very welcome and it was easy to ask to stay on part-time. They were very excited to have me, which was great. 

Julia

We’re always excited to have interns stay!

Julia

Do you feel like your time here this summer, the things you’ve learned, have impacted the way you view your education or even like what you want to do after school? 

Anna

I would say yes, just because I’ve learned a lot that I didn’t necessarily know went into medical device development and design. I think part of that is because my sophomore year, when you’re really supposed to do all the hands-on stuff, was online due to COVID, unfortunately. So I think this filled like a big gap that I had in terms of missing hands-on experience. Now I definitely know this is something I want to do afterwards, and product development specifically for medical devices seems like it’s right up my alley. 

Julia

Cool. That’s awesome that you got to fill that gap here. 

Anna

Yeah, it was unexpected, but I’m glad that it happened. 

Julia

Yeah, good. So what advice would you have for other people in school looking to get into the medical device field or wondering like, am I going to like this? Am I not going to like this? What advice do you have for someone like that who maybe is looking for an internship? 

Anna

Kind of just looking at the job descriptions, they’re all probably going to be similar. You know, the type of job you’re applying for, the job description, they’re going to ask you to do the same thing. So I think just doing a little bit of extra research about the company itself to know if it’s a good fit for you was really what made the difference between my other internships and Blur. And also, you know, I’d always thought I wanted to work at a really big company. And so my internship after junior year, that’s what I did. I worked at a really big company and, you know, I loved all the people and the work, but it was just a little too big. It didn’t feel as personal or have that community that I was looking for. So I think that’s what influenced my decision to look at a little bit of a, you know, more medium sized, smaller company like Blur. 

Julia

And what was your favorite part of your internship? Your ongoing internship, I guess.

Anna

Aside from the festivities, the Blurthday Party happened my first week of the summer and then the Blurbecue happened the last week with the cornhole tournament. So aside from the obvious festivities, I think it was just getting to work with so many experienced engineers and just their willingness to answer questions. I had a lot of questions, so that was great that they were so willing to answer and just let me be independent and kind of do what needed to be done. And then if I had questions again, just ask them. They’ll help me out. 

Julia

Yeah, that is something that we’ve talked about quite a bit on the podcast, or at least I have brought up several times, is the freedom to ask questions and to learn while you’re here. No one’s gonna, like, ostracize you for not knowing something. And I think that’s just advice for people maybe getting into internships for the first time or coming right out of school. You can feel like you need to know everything and that if you ask a question, then people are going to look down on you or think you’re not as much of an expert or why didn’t you learn this in school, but it’s more of a testament to your character and your willingness to learn if you do open up and ask those questions. I find around here people are super respectful and they’re not going to bash you, but they’ll take the time to educate you. 

Anna

That was one of my bigger concerns coming in. I was like, because I did graduate with biomedical engineering in the spring before I started, and I kind of had that concern of, well I do have a degree now, even though I’m an intern I felt that I should maybe know a little bit more than I did. Within my first week, people would just explain stuff, say like, it’s okay if you don’t know how to do this, which just made it feel so much better asking questions.