I'm finishing my master’s degree in music, science, and technology at Stanford. I worked at Gibson Guitars in their research and development division. Gibson is primarily known for its guitars, but also owns many other various technology and music companies. I have been playing guitar for 11 years and love many of Gibson's products, so this was a perfect position for me. This summer, I designed, administered, and reported on an experiment looking at what happens when you send audio over wifi. A professor from my graduate program worked with me on this project. My main role was to develop the test methods we would be using, which I based off of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standards, but I also spent a lot of time finding bugs and fixing them. I did similar work while at Dolby, but never as the lead. It was exciting to be the knowledgeable one in the conversation! I spent the final month finding participants for our study. We're currently analyzing results and hopefully will find some cool conclusions.
What I learned most about this summer was communication and responsibility. My domain knowledge was fairly strong, and that’s why I got the position, but I needed to be able to bring other people in the group up to speed quickly. It was the first time that I didn't have someone to defer to if I didn't know the answer, and it took confidence to sometimes say "I don't know." It was my responsibility to then find the correct answer by reading papers and prototyping. I feel that I grew a lot and am more independent because of this experience.