Riley's Review of the Google Trip

Riley Jones
08.05.2014
Ms. Klasen
English 10

Summary and Reflection of the Google Trip

When we arrived at Google, Caroline (the person most familiar with Google as she is a Googler's daughter) took us to a side building where the receptionist pointed us to the main building. We met her dad there, Mr. van Winkle, who would be our main guide. After getting our visitor's badges and storing our belongings, we got a short run-down on the rules. Then, the class was led to another building (the one Caroline brought us o before) so we could proceed to a meeting room. Everyone filed into seats and grabbed drinks before Mr. van Winkle's presentation began. He told us about Google's history, data centers, and a bit about his job as a Site Reliability Engineer. We were able to ask a few questions and get answers that weren't "classified". Next, we went on a tour of the Google office! We were split into three groups. On the tour, we saw many of the so-called microkitchens, each matching the theme of the floor they are located on. As our group marched from floor to floor, we also glimpsed offices and workspaces. On each floor there are also small, semi-open meeting spaces, such as an egg shaped capsule, the basket of an air balloon, and a small spaceship. We wound our way back to the meeting room as Mr. van Winkle told us of some of the benefits of being a Google employee. My group was the first to arrive, so we asked any questions we didn't ask before. Once the other groups arrived, everyone went back down to the reception. After grabbing  our belongings, we took a picture in front of the large Google sign. The class said goodbye to Mr. van Winkle and went on our merry way!

Before we went to Google, we had a homework assignment. The assignment was to write down what we knew about Google and any questions we could think of. This made me realize just how little I knew about Google. That realization shocked me, because I thought I knew a fair amount about Google. Therefore, i found the presentation quite interesting and learned a lot. Did you know that Google made $2,000 every second in the first three months of 2014? I didn't, but I did know that they make almost all of that money from selling ads. I also learned that Google's mission statement is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. I feel like they are doing a great job of that. All the search engines, but especially Google, are making massive amounts of information easily accessible for anyone with an Internet connection and a computer. These amazing amounts of information both make us lazier and empower us. While we can snap our fingers (or press the enter key) and have information available, which makes us lazier, the range of sources and opinions in which we can find the information expands our horizons in ways that were ever possible before Google organized the information into useful channels.

Boulware, Crystal. Large Google logo in the center, with blurred lines of color under it suggesting movement. Digital image. Liberty Voice. Liberty Voice, 21 Jan. 2014. Web. 7 May 2014. <http://guardianlv.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Google-Moves-Into-650x365.png>.