Terps at Work: Yashi Sinha

Prior to this internship I was planning to pursue a career in RTL/Physical design but after completing this internship I have gained interest in post-silicon verification.

How did you find the internship/co-op? What was the interview process like?    I applied to John Deere via the company website after getting a referral from an employee. Shortly after that, I got an email from the HR stating the interview process. There were 2 interviews comprising of both technical and managerial questions. And lastly there was a call from the HR with details about the internship.

What have been the most interesting aspects of your internship?    The most interesting aspect of my internship was learning about hardware/software integration. I was testing different NVIDIA computing platforms such as NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier and NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin to monitor their performance using Python scripts. The internship gave me practical knowledge about the interaction between hardware and the software.

What campus activities or courses do you think helped you, or would have helped you, with this internship?    The courses that helped me with this internship were computer system design and architecture, microprocessor based design, and embedded system design. These courses helped me to understand the basics about hardware, what it comprises and how it works. Apart from that, some basic courses from LinkedIn Learning helped me gain a better understanding of python.

How have your career or academic goals changed as a result of this internship experience?    Prior to this internship I was planning to pursue a career in RTL/Physical design but after completing this internship I have gained interest in post-silicon verification. Writing python scripts for testing computing platforms kept me in touch with the hardware as well as the programming side of the system.

What advice would you give other UMD engineering students seeking an internship or co-op position?    Networking is the key. The process is a lot faster when you get into the system through an employee referral. Apart from that, your managerial skills are as important as your technical skills to crack any interview.