Tokyo, the most populous and the most prosperous prefecture of Japan, accounts for 19% of Japan’s GDP and is where half of the listed companies of Japan set their headquarters. *
Even more, all Fortune Global 500 companies have headquarters, branches, or offices here. This not only means that here are the most job opportunities in Japan, but also denotes that it provides a huge number of internship positions for college students.
As society’s requirements for college graduates increase, academic ability is not the only criterion for new graduates. Engineering skills, workplace communication and teamwork are also important when a company seeks potential employee. In my perspective, a long-term internship is one of the most effective ways to build these abilities up and help students well prepare for their future careers.
Thus, early this year (2021), I started to look for an engineer internship opportunity. And I was very fortunate to find a well-fitted position in Bosch Japan through LinkedIn, where I can work with regular employees in my daily work routine.
Robert Bosch GmbH (Bosch for simplicity) is a global enterprise whose core business areas are across mobility, consumer goods, industrial technology, energy, and building technology.
Bosch’s German headquarters started in 1886, and this year is just the 110th anniversary of its Japan business starting. It’s interesting that I join Bosch mobility division at the point that this more-than-100-year automotive industry is undergoing a drastic change. The more special thing is the department I work for, the Cross-Domain Computing Solutions. It is a new division found in 2020 to meet the challenges in this fast-growing industry.
From now, I’d like to dive into some of my responsibilities and working items in Bosch. I work in a group named Product Area Access to build Perfect Keyless systems for Japanese automobile manufacturers. Unlike most Japanese students who participate in hackathon-like internships, in Bosch, I enroll in a team and work with regular employees to solve problems in both business and engineering. I started my internship with translating technical documentation for customers and studying the system architecture of our product. And I also did things like building a demo system on a real car, collecting unit test data in the plant, and writing code to analyze performance. After I became familiar with the product system and the work routine in the first month, I started to develop an interface for our demo system. This task almost runs through the rest of my internship phase. Since my research in Tokyo Tech is mainly simulation and design algorithm, debugging code next to a vehicle is also a very novel experience for me. By the way, participating in daily/weekly meetings, and taking trainings are also part of my work content.
My internship will come to an end in August. I have learnt more than I expected during this internship. From writing a business e-mail and communicating efficiently with colleagues, to developing an automotive system. As an international student, I believe this experience will help me to enter the workplace more smoothly after graduation.
*Please refer to (information only in Japanese)：
Number of companies listed in Tokyo：https://todo-ran.com/t/kiji/21371
