my NASA internship (2025)

standing inside of an active astronaut training module of the orion spacecraft used on the artemis missions

it was an accident

believe it or not, i never really dreamed of working at NASA; it just kind of happened, and it was my first proper internship related to my degree.

in the summer of 2024, i applied to only two jobs; one being at NASA for an internship role. the sate of the job market was pretty horrendous at this time and i kept getting denied by companies like intel and other “big tech” giants, so i was honestly pretty close to applying for nothing at all. there’s a pretty decent chance i would’ve just continued training to compete in boxing if i didn’t happen to get this job.

regardless, i figured NASA at least would be a place where i can feel good about the work i’m doing, and i figured they might appreciate my background in leadership and advocacy more than a profit-driven company would. not to mention, this role specifically called out experience with the unity game engine, which i’d been using for about 2 years at that point.

surprise!

it took a pretty long time before i heard anything about this position, and i’d been used to “sending and forgetting” job and scholarship applications to avoid the stress of anticipation. i sent my application around july, and suddenly was contacted 4 months later for an interview.

as soon as i got the call, everything started happening so quickly: i got the job after just one interview (unheard of in the tech industry), and i’d have to book a flight and get to houston within a month for orientation.

the job itself

the simulation i worked on is sometimes showcased at large public events for the public to experience themselves, and i was primarily responsible for porting the existing simulation to webgl, optimization, and adding some planned features. i finished all of these responsibilities about halfway through the internship term, so i also proposed adding an interactive tutorial so that people at home can learn how to operate the simulation. incidentally, i also added localization features so the simulation can be available in multiple languages as well.

reflecting

above everything else, landing this internship was beyond validating. as i mentioned, it was my first (and only) tech internship, and it was at an organization that i think actually contributes to humanity as an overall net positive. in college, i started growing into the type of person that overshoots for everything; why not try to transfer to MIT? why not apply to work at NASA? why not apply for hundreds of scholarships?

in the end, you’re not gonna immediately succeed at everything you try. you’re also going to be the only person who truly lives and dies with your successes and failures, so why care what others might think just because you’re making an effort to chase the possibilities? i’ve found that usually, the people who cast doubt are the ones that don’t think they themselves are capable of whatever it is that they’re judging.

basically: YOLO.