Section One: The Reading Selection
Few years earlier when I went to a bookstore to purchase a reference book of my interest, I happened to see a book, which withdrew my attention with a strong appeal. The title of the book was “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People ”. As a freshman of business student, the title of the book was more than appealing to me that I purchased the book with a lot of expectation. After I skimmed through the book on the very day I purchased it; I have immediately felt in love with this marvelous book written by Stephen R. Covey.
The book talks about seven different habits, which would make a significant difference in a person’s life if one would apply it to his or her life, and the book thoroughly explains about these habits in a very insightful way. According to the book, the seven habits are; being proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win/win, seek first to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw. As a senior student of international business major now, I cannot agree more with all seven habits listed on the book that these were the most important concepts, which we had to learn as a business student in school.
The Habit 1, Being Proactive. This is the concept, which I like the most that in business world the concept of being proactive which is the act of being initiative cannot be emphasized enough. The Habit 2 is Begin with the End in Mind. The book says that begin with the end in mind is like to create a personal mission statement which will help us to focus on what we want to achieve in the end. The Habit 3, Put First Things First, again, cannot be emphasized more that it is perhaps the most important skill one should have especially for one who is in the business field as a personal management skill. Think Win/Win, which is the Habit 4, explains that people can seek mutual benefit in all human interactions by applying the win/win concept. The Habit 5 is Seek First to Understand and then to Be Understood. Again, this is one of the important concepts in the business field that in order to maintain a good relationship, the two-way interaction is very important. Thus, one who applies this rule to induce the win/win situation should try to understand others first then to be understood by them. Finally, the Habit 7, Sharpen the Saw is about taking the time to recharge one’s energy in order to be more effective. People often forget to recharge themselves that they often get lost in the way by either being to exhaust or worn out physically and mentally. In order to be productive, we should not for get to sharpen the saw.
Before and during my internship, I recited these seven habits as if it’s the rule of law. The book has been one of the most important guide tools to me that so far it has been very effective in both my professional life and the personal life.
Section Two: Job Description
After I have attended I.B. 495 Orientation, I began to search for an internship position. I have looked through the opportunities listed on the International Business Website, career center, and the International Business Department E-mail System. Not long after I began searching, I have received an e-mail through International Business Department that the company named by SYSTRAN is looking for an intern for its CJK Project which stands for Chinese, Japanese, Korean Project. Since my major emphasis was Japanese language and I spoke Korean, the word ‘CJK’ predominantly captured my attention. I immediately called the company in order to set up an appointment for an interview.
SYSTRAN is a translation software company which develops and markets the world’s most comprehensive translation software designed for individual, corporate, and internet use. The headquarter of SYSTRAN is located in France with operations offices in San Diego, CA, and in Luxembourg. SYSTRAN’s core technology features products for the Internet infrastructure that contribute towards promoting communication in more than 30 language combinations and 20 specialized domains. As globalization continues to accelerate, SYSTRAN’s technology becomes more vital for worldwide communication. The vision of the company is to be the world leader in Globalization products, specifically in natural language translation software and related services to enhance its customer’s ability to communicate by breaking the language barrier.
On June 15th, 2001 I have set up an appointment to have an interview with Ms. Yiling Shi, the Project Manager of SYSTRAN. My first impression of the company was very pleasant one for its location. The office is located in La Jolla, which is known to be a great place in San Diego area. Furthermore, it was located right by the beach. The perfect place to be! Besides all these, the first impression with Ms. Shi was a very pleasant one also. At the interview she explained about the job description which I will be working as a student intern. The departments were divided into three big groups; the linguistic, computer science, and the marketing department. Among these three departments, I was put into the linguistic department for the CJK Project. The title of my internship position was the Lexicographer. As a CJK Project member, the main job responsibility was to correct the data which was put into the software system in Korean and Japanese language. Although the main task was not a very difficult thing to do, the task required several different skills. First of all, it required a thorough knowledge in computers. In order to handle the task, I had to learn how to operate Linux computer software system. The task also required data manipulation, information retrieval, and file organization on the computer. Also, the person who handles this duty need to be fluent in at least two different languages, have experience in translation, experience with developing and tuning automatic translation software, basic knowledge of formal language models, and grammar proficiency in at least one non-English languages.
The very first time I have learned that 95 percent of the employees in the office were bi-lingual regardless of their job position I was very surprised. Furthermore, about 45 percent of the employees in the office were even tri-lingual. Therefore, it seemed that speaking at least two different languages is the very basic requirement to work for SYSTRAN.
Section Three: Application of International Business Major
The very first time when I became an International Business Major, I only had vague ideas and plans about the major. In short, I did not have much idea about what is international business. I began to realize the importance of being an international business major and about its necessity in the world of today after I have taken many courses in the international business. Especially, among many other classes, the global management (management 405) and the global marketing (marketing 376) class stand out for its application to the real world. As an IB major student, I have learned the importance of being aware of different cultures, being able to interact in these cultures, and being able to do business in various cultures. SYSTRAN was the perfect place to learn how to interact with people from the various cultures. There were people from Asian countries. There were people from Europe. And of course, there were people from North America. Everybody had their own unique ways to interact with other people. If I did not had any previous learning about different cultures and how to interact with the people who are from the different cultures, I probably had a very difficult time in cooperating with the people at SYSTRAN. Based on the learning from the school, I was able to recognize the different behaviors, languages, and thinking process. In addition, it was a great opportunity for me to explore my foreign language skill, which in my case is Japanese. I, myself, was very surprised with my Japanese fluency in correcting the grammars, vocabularies, and in the conversation. With my fluency in Japanese language, I was even able to open Japanese teaching course for the employee at SYSTRAN. I only taught the basic grammars and conversation in Japanese to the employees but it was a great experience for me to apply what I have learned in school.
During my internship, one thing that I have realized was the lack of computer skills. Since IB major only requires to study IDS 180 class for the computer skill, which provides with the use of microsoft office only, when I confronted with other computer software systems, such as Linux, Unix, and Pearl, it was rather overwhelming to me in the beginning. However, in overall, I am very satisfied with my learnings from international business major and its application to the real world, and I am very honored to be a international business major at San Diego State University.
Section Four: The Student Intern’s Role
As I have mentioned earlier, SYSTRAN Software Inc. divides into three different groups, the linguistic, computer science, and marketing. In order to be qualified for the linguistic department, one must be fluent in at least three languages, have experience with machine translation, strong knowledge of language description, parsers, generators, and knowledge of finite state and corpus-based technologies. As for a student intern in this department, the basic requirement would be the fluency in at least two different languages plus the basic computer skills. In computer science department, it also divides into three different job categories. They are; webmaster, software engineer, and test engineer. As for a webmaster position, one must have significant experience in developing Web sites, including design, development and implementation, knowledge of CGI and SSI languages, strong understanding of Internet/Intranet mechanisms, and some knowledge or fluency in a non-English language. For the software engineer intern position, one must have computer science background, program in C/C++, perl, knowledge of TCP/IP, Unix and Windows, and, again, knowledge or fluency in a non-English language is plus. For the marketing department, one needs to have an experience in track record of successful product sales, experience with Internet and Windows application development, strong knowledge of technology industry, experience with machine translation or natural language software, and ability to prioritize work and communicate effectively in English.
As I have listed above, either as a regular employee or as an intern, having fluency in at least two different languages and the computer skills are the must for whoever wants to work at the SYSTRAN. Therefore, SYSTRAN would be an ideal workplace for the IB major students for whom that are especially interested in studying different languages and for the students who have a strong computer background. Besides these important qualifications, a good communication skill, interpersonal skill, and analytical capability are needed. But, I have learned that the most important qualification for an intern to have at any workplace is to be patient and conscientious. So, I think that a person who is patient and conscientious will be welcomed by any employers.
Section Five: Career Potential in this Field
Before I started my internship with SYSTRAN Software Inc., my original plan was to have the internship experience at oversea. Therefore, I was a little disappointed about the situation that I had to stay in U.S. for the internship experience. However, from working at SYSTRAN, I was able to receive a valuable experience. First, I was able to meet many nice people. It was a very friendly atmosphere that I became very close to everybody in a short time of period. Second, I was able to learn about the translation software that how it’s developed and what are the procedures in order to make translation softwares and the process of the distribution of the products.
The long-term career plan with SYSTRAN is a positive one. However, since most of its work is heavily involved with language, one should have interest in learning different languages. In addition as I have described earlier with the job descriptions, strong computer science background is necessary. The strong computer skill is not only limited to the software engineer department but everybody at SYSTRAN must know how to operate different types of software systems.
Personally, I have a huge interest in learning different languages and its cultures. However, my interest in language is related with more sociable setting. At SYSTRAN, the application of language skill was somewhat different than how I expected. The skill was more involved in correcting grammars and vocabularies. Therefore, the long-term career expectation with SYSTRAN would be more like a researcher’s type that if anyone who is interested in studying, developing, and researching the languages, this would a great choice for that person.
In conclusion, the overall experience with SYSTRAN was a very pleasant one and I believe that I have learned many things about translation software development process and the people working behind it. Above all, I really have enjoyed the friendly working environment at SYSTRAN Software Inc.