MP Internship participation experience for
What students take away from being a participant in this internship experience.
Students learn how to:
create simple but informative models of system behavior and interactions for their mentor's problem topic,
practice the human-machine partnership that enables exposure and control of emergent behaviors,
contemplate and predict potential future states of behavior and systemic consequences, and
use metacognitive skills and computer-assisted reasoning tools for verifying and validating behavior architectures.
Students who successfully complete the internship receive:
a certificate of completion
career advice and coaching on how to summarize their internship experience on their resume
access to free Monterey Phoenix digital products, developments, and updates
continued access to digital workspace to keep in touch with mentors and coaches for at least a year
Students with outstanding participation may be invited to:
advanced MP training opportunities to learn additional model analysis and debugging skills
return in the Coach role for future internship experiences
What students agree to provide as a participant in this internship.
Time commitment:
Online orientation and preparation activities (~6 hours, on own time)
On-site participation and regular attendance (40 hours/week for four weeks)
Weekends are for free time, extra work time, and optional meetings among team members
Work assignments:
Students receive a problem topic assignment, mentor and team assignment based on their academic major
Special requests are considered but not guaranteed to satisfy program constraints
Teams provide regular updates on their progress throughout the experience
Adherence to the ground rules:
Check email regularly for program correspondence
Ask questions and be open-minded
Work with a growth mindset at the edge of your current capability, with intention to level up your skills
Follow instructions for information sharing and control
Attend required events; be on time; stay until dismissed
Have a professional, workmanlike (work-person-like) demeanor with instructors, mentors, coaches, and one another
Be collegial with your teammates: if you are outspoken, ensure others have a chance to weigh in; if you are quiet, be assertive and speak up.
"Within a day or two, I understood how to create a basic model schema to generate hypothetical behavior scenarios, which, in a sense, do nothing more than help tell a story… But MP also sometimes shows… a story that is sensical but unanticipated—or emergent… that make you think, ‘Yeah, actually, that could happen. Why didn’t I think of that?’"
Student in Cohort 1, Summer 2020
"I learned a lot during my internship with Monterey Phoenix. Working with MP helped me see how easy it is to overlook certain scenarios that could have an important impact on systems that we use. Some of these unexpected or emergent behaviors could have had big consequences – good or bad – if we didn’t identify them. We always think about the intended behaviors, but it’s a lot harder to step back and think about the things that “might” happen that we otherwise would have glossed over. This experience really helped me start looking at my systems and models in a different way – considering all the ways that a system might act, rather than just my preconceived and intended ideas."
Student in Cohort 6, Summer 2024
"Working with Monterey Phoenix has fundamentally changed the way I think about system behavior. By modeling predefined systems, I began to uncover unexpected behaviors I hadn’t previously thought of. After the first week, I started prioritizing the identification of unintended behaviors in my day-to-day work. I continue to apply an MP mindset when approaching unfamiliar systems, and it has become essential to my problem-solving process.
Furthermore, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and continue working with incredible people who have supported me and offered guidance on applying MP to my current projects. Their mentorship has helped me explore new use cases and strengthened my confidence in integrating MP into real-world systems."
Student in Cohort 6, Summer 2024
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