Helping Students Apply Theoretical Knowledge in the Real World at PTC

For several years PTC has provided students worldwide with enriching, valuable internship opportunities where they can hone their professional skills, acquire hands-on job knowledge, and garner real-world experiences not typically taught in classrooms or textbooks.

The 10-week intern program aims to create a learning experience where students are engaged in solving team projects or assignments tied to industry needs or business challenges. This real- world exposure can help students in determining their long-term career goals as well as some of the complexities surrounding their field of study.

This summer, 11 Arena interns with backgrounds ranging from marketing and communications to engineering, sales, and software engineering have come to Boston to learn, work, and have a little fun, like attending a Boston Red Sox baseball game.

We had the chance to talk with two Arena interns—Mason Childers, software engineering, and Nina Hoang, marketing and communications—who shared a little about their internship experience.

Here’s what they said:

TELL US ABOUT YOUR EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

Mason: I’m currently a rising senior at Dartmouth College pursuing a bachelor’s in computer science modified with mathematics. I was pretty good at math in high school. That really started off my interest. In my sophomore year, I took Introduction to Computer Science and really enjoyed coding. It came very easily to me. I switched my focus from math but decided to modify the computer science major with mathematics. This allowed me to incorporate my original interest in math with my interest in coding.

Nina: I’m a rising senior at the college of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. I study marketing with a concentration in business analytics and I am also working towards a psychology minor. I’m not originally from Virginia or the U.S. I was born and raised in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I came to the U.S. as an international student. I learned English at school and through popular media from a very young age.

HOW DID YOU ARRIVE AT AN INTERNSHIP WITH ARENA?

Mason: I talked with SVP of Product and CTO, Wenxiang Ma, who was incredibly warm and welcoming. We talked about my experience and how that might fit into the team for an internship if offered the opportunity. I was given the chance to interview with my current manager, Gordon Ko, who asked me questions about my past experiences, what I’ve studied at school, how I approach problem solving, and my technical background. Thankfully the interview went well, and I was fortunate enough to be a part of the intern program.

Nina: I was browsing LinkedIn looking for summer intern opportunities. I stumbled upon a summer intern opportunity I thought was perfect. I didn’t know much about PTC at the time. I know they are a big tech company, and they provide digital solutions to businesses to create products, but I didn’t know much about Arena as a product line. I researched Arena and was impressed with the cloud-native product lifecycle management (PLM) solution. I was very curious to know what was going on behind the scenes, especially the marketing strategies Arena employs. I decided to apply.

DESCRIBE THE PROJECT YOU’RE CURRENTLY WORKING ON

Mason: I just finished my first project as a part of the platform engineering team at Arena. My internship mentor, Gordon, has been giving me assignments to help with a project meant to enhance seamless integration between different solutions like Onshape. We’re trying to make it easier to bridge the gap.

My first assignment within that project was to provide unit testing for the server-side operations and the application. The test ensures that the code works as expected. The other half of the project was code percentage, which essentially tracks how much of the code is being tested. Percentage is important. It verifies that the important parts of your program that you want to test are being tested. And it essentially provides you with an easy way to check the robustness of your testing. I just finished and went through each module that my mentor assigned me. I studied the code and used the testing Framework J Unit to test each of these modules.

This project took me about five weeks and concluded with a lot of in-depth tests and code coverage for the overall project, which I’m very pleased with. Now my focus has shifted to integrating Arena’s API authorization service, Open Auth, with the same project. It’s a little bit more of writing new code rather than really understanding the old code and making sure it works properly. Those are the two things that I’ve been working on so far.

Nina: I’m working on creating and launching a full funnel marketing campaign to promote Arena’s PLM and QMS as a connected solution. The first thing that I did was design ads to our targeted accounts. These ads are targeted to top-of-funnel customers who are not aware of Arena or PTC products. There are customers who are in the middle funnel that are already aware of who we are and it’s important we get them interested in what we do.

I’ve been designing and running ads across the websites for our customers and then guiding the creative direction of a promotional video. Also, I’m working on assembling the landing page—understanding what components go where, what videos to use, and what graphics to highlight when a customer eventually clicks on those ads. Putting the landing page together is the last piece of the campaign. We need to measure performance for reporting, review analytics after the campaign is launched, and look at those numbers to help us understand what stories they tell, and ways to improve the campaign.

WHAT HAVE YOU ENJOYED MOST ABOUT YOUR INTERNSHIP?

Mason: I’ve really enjoyed how much it feels like I’m genuinely learning and applying new skills. I still do a lot of the things that I’ve learned in school, but I’m also evolving my capabilities as a software engineer because my changing responsibilities require me to learn new things that I hadn’t heard of before.

For example, my first project, as I talked about, was to test back-end services using unit tests and to fully understand the code and how to produce such tests. I had to take a lot of courses on LinkedIn Learning such as Tomcat, Postman, and Maven Dependency Manager. After completing the courses, I put these new skills to work, and it really cemented my understanding.

This is the type of learning that you can only get from hands-on engagement and supportive mentorship. That’s been the part I enjoy the most. It’s also just been an incredibly supportive environment. Gordon is always willing to sit down with me and teach me new and interesting concepts.

Nina: I’m amazed at how much I’ve grown professionally. I’ve been learning how to build ads from scratch, develop website landing pages, interpret analytics reports, gather insights, and optimize a campaign based on those insights.

I’ve even picked up some soft skills tips like how to work in person with a big team. There are many things that I’ve learned during my internship that I think will be valuable. I’m grateful for the exposure to new tools like Salesforce and marketing concepts that have helped grow my marketing skills.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU OFFER OTHERS WHO ARE CONSIDERING A CAREER PATH LIKE YOURS?

Mason: I believe technology evolves so quickly that making sure you know every skill possible is becoming increasingly less important. You will almost always have to teach yourself new things as a part of new projects and positions. For that reason, the most important tech skill that you can learn is the skill of learning quickly and passionately. I would say to focus on the things that you genuinely enjoy, do projects you like, and don’t worry too much about what specific technical skills you’re gaining. Passion, interest, and the ability to learn quickly are far more valuable than any one skill you might pick up.

Nina: Marketing is an exciting and versatile profession. You can literally go anywhere—any industry. There are a lot of different options you can go with—creative, analytics marketing, marketing from the customer or agency side. My advice would be to get exposure to as many different opportunities as you can and to test the waters before you commit to something.

Since landing my Arena marketing internship at PTC, I’ve been dealing with the analytical side of things. I’ve been working with numbers and reviewing data. I’m sort of shifting towards analytical marketing more than creative marketing. My point is, you never know until you open yourself up to multiple opportunities.

REGARDING YOUR CAREER PATH, DO YOU HAVE ANY SHORT-TERM GOALS OR ASPIRATIONS YOU CAN SHARE?

Mason: As a rising senior following this internship, I’ll be starting to look for full-time positions. My short-term goal right now is finishing the internship strong and get as much as I can out of the experience. I’ve been observing those around me to get a feel for good work habits to pick up and apply these to my own work and attitude. I’m excited to learn new things and hopefully take courses that are of interest to me like machine learning or web app development.

Nina: I’m going back to Virginia to finish my senior year, hopefully ending on a high note. My goal is to make the dean’s list or have a perfect 4.0 semester. My Arena internship is the first exposure to the tech industry. I’ve really enjoyed it so far, especially how challenging, fast-paced, and innovative the working environment is. I’d like to work for a few years in the tech industry and pursue my MBA.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO FOR FUN?

Mason: I’m on the Dartmouth track team; I love running and staying active. Also, my family enjoys watching movies and sports together. In my spare time, I try to stay current with the latest events or movies so our family can discuss when we get together.

Nina: At school, I’m a member of an all-female a capella group. We give performances around campus, year-round. Singing is one of my biggest passions; I love to sing. I also enjoy traveling.

Future-proofing for the real world

Armed with the wisdom and experience they’ve gained from their enriching internships at PTC, Nina and Mason will soon be ready to take their real-world knowledge and apply it.

PTC/Arena thanks all the interns for their hard work and contributions. All the best in the new semester!