report: add conclusion

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Bruno BELANYI 2021-07-15 19:50:19 +02:00
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# Conclusion
## Education and career objectives
I chose to major in Image Processing and Image Synthesis for multiple reasons,
most notably I had an interest in high performance programming, and thought that
this major would yield well to it. This proved to be true, although more so due
to applying it to the projects that we were given rather than the courses we
were taught (except for a few which specifically focused on it).
Through watching conference presentations, I learned about the field of finance
and thought it would provide interesting challenges that aligned with my
interests. This motivated my choice to intern at IMC, even though their business
is far removed from the core teachings of my major. This too, proved to be true,
and I'm glad to see my initial hunch panning out the way it did.
## Improving the major
Having more focus on measuring results and performances of our projects would be
an interesting idea, to put it into context for the major, the need for real
time image analysis and other such constraints means that having the skills to
measure and improve our code can be a necessary part of working in the industry.
The one class that stands out to me as having this issue front and center is the
GPGPU course, introducing us to massively parallel programming on a graphics
card. However, we were mostly left to our own devices to figure out effective
ways to measure, and analyse those results. Providing more guidance would be a
productive endeavor, ensuring that the students have been provided with the
correct tool set to deal with those problems.
## Introspection
Working abroad, with the additional COVID restrictions, is a harsh (FIXME: find
softer term) transition from the routine of school. However, both the company
and the team have made it easy to adjust.
* The daily stand-up meeting, and weekly retrospective seem more important than
ever when you can potentially not talk to your colleagues for days due to
working-from-home.
* IMC is very pro-active in organising regular events for their employees. This
is a great way to feel more engaged during such a period. They also organised a
week of training once the other interns had joined, which created a broader
network of relationships in a foreign city.
* My mentor encouraged me to ask as many questions as I could when I first
started my internship, and I assisted to some presentations which gave
additional context about the work being done by the team. This was helpful in
getting over the fact of feeling overwhelmed when first getting acquainted with
the code and technology being developed and used.
* The gradual transition to return to office, allowing me to arrange one day a
week to work next to my mentor, lead to more one-on-one interaction which feel
more productive than the usual textual interactions.
## Career evolution
This internship was everything I expected and more. The people are great, the
company is thriving, the work environment outstanding.
The *fintech* sector is full of interesting problems to me. I loved learning
about the basic theory of trading, what constitutes the basis for our
algorithms' decisions. I had a great deal of enjoyment working on my projects
during the internship, despite the few moments of frustration that come from
working on a distributed system.
Working at IMC, you are surrounded by smart and hard-working engineers, and
encouraged to interact with everybody to spread knowledge. Their focus on
continual improvement means that you are always learning and making yourself
better. Furthermore, they take good care of their employees, the mood is that of
a focused, casual, and playful atmosphere.
All in all, I think that IMC is great place to work at, there are few companies
like it. This will have an impact in how I rate potential future employers, as I
expect few places to be as well-rounded as IMC.
# Appendix
## About IMC