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A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

alexeymk.com

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Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#31

Post by alexhaefner »

rabidsnail wrote: post #29

Startup internships tend to be semester-long job interviews, which means that you'll be doing the same thing that the full-time employees are doing but with more supervision at first. This is a huge win for you, the intern, for two reasons: 1. Instead of doing menial grunt work you'll be doing real work for real users, which is a _way_ better learning experience. Finding out what people want isn't something that can…

Yes they're semester long job interviews.

But what you'll be doing as an intern is not consistent across companies or even across teams. You might be QA, which is nothing like writing production code. You also might be assigned a project instead of working on the code base with the rest of the group. You might even be a sys admin or something similar.

If you're getting an internship, make sure you know what you're getting.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#32

Post by jsharpe »

rabidsnail wrote: post #29

Startup internships tend to be semester-long job interviews, which means that you'll be doing the same thing that the full-time employees are doing but with more supervision at first. This is a huge win for you, the intern, for two reasons: 1. Instead of doing menial grunt work you'll be doing real work for real users, which is a _way_ better learning experience. Finding out what people want isn't something that can…

In reply to 1 (having done internships at Facebook, Google and RIM), all of these large companies try very hard to avoid having interns do grunt work. These internships are as much about advertising the company to the intern (and the intern's peers when they return to school) as they are about getting work done. In every internship I've done with these big companies, I've had interesting projects to work on and was specifically shielded from doing some of the menial work that full timers had to do. I think some of them even had explicit policies about this.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#36

Post by AlexeyMK »

Joshim5 wrote: post #26

Any advice for high school students who don't have Upperclassman to look up to for advice?

First - it's impressive that you're already thinking about this. I definitely wasn't looking at internships back in high school

When I was at FB, several of the interns had just finished high school, so it's certainly doable to get a top company offer - same goes for start-ups. It's just a question of emailing them and having the experience - past projects, etc - to be interesting. Same advice as I'd give to a college student.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#37

Post by tkahn6 »

Joshim5 wrote: post #26

Any advice for high school students who don't have Upperclassman to look up to for advice?

Try to find a local company. Advertising companies usually do some sort of web presence thing for their clients. That's a place where you could provide value.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#38

Post by apaprocki »

jsharpe wrote: post #32
rabidsnail wrote: post #29

Startup internships tend to be semester-long job interviews, which means that you'll be doing the same thing that the full-time employees are doing but with more supervision at first. This is a huge win for you, the intern, for two reasons: 1. Instead of doing menial grunt work you'll be doing real work for real users, which is a _way_ better learning experience. Finding out what people want isn't something that can…

In reply to 1 (having done internships at Facebook, Google and RIM), all of these large companies try very hard to avoid having interns do grunt work. These internships are as much about advertising the company to the intern (and the intern's peers when they return to school) as they are about getting work done. In every internship I've done with these big companies, I've had interesting projects to work on and was s…

I second this.. at Bloomberg we also craft specific projects for interns that can be completed realistically in the amount of time that they are there and are genuinely useful either internally or inside an external-facing product. Much of what is produced by interns is released into production.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#39

Post by rabidsnail »

apaprocki wrote: post #38
jsharpe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reply to 1 (having done internships at Facebook, Google and RIM), all of these large companies try very hard to avoid having interns do grunt work. These internships are as much about advertising the company to the intern (and the intern's peers when they return to school) as they are about getting work done. In every internship I've done with these big companies, I've had interesting projects to work on and was s…

I second this.. at Bloomberg we also craft specific projects for interns that can be completed realistically in the amount of time that they are there and are genuinely useful either internally or inside an external-facing product. Much of what is produced by interns is released into production.

That's not at all the same to working on the core product. Launching a new public-facing project isn't going to have the user base that the core product has.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#40

Post by apaprocki »

int3 wrote: post #20
tluthra wrote: post #19

As a Junior at Berkeley who's had some internship experience, let me add me two cents worth. Definitely start looking for an internship during your freshman year. Chances are almost nobody will call you back, you won't get many interviews, and the ones you do get you won't be able to answer anything, but all you need is just to get one person to agree and it'll make your resume look infinitely better for the followin…

Chiming in as a sophomore from a liberal arts college: you don't even have to be from a top tech school like Berkeley to get an internship your freshman year. BigCos are unlikely to call you back, but you do have a shot at startups. And once you've got some work experience under your belt you'll have a better shot at the BigCos (and anywhere else, really). Quick plug: Mozilla is another place which cares more about w…

Speaking from a big company point of view, it has a lot to do with the individual candidate, obviously. Someone could be a freshman, but if they are constantly working on projects and have a decent portfolio (doesn't necessary apply to just programming) to review, it is much easier to bring them in.

Personally, when looking at junior hires, personal projects can have a lot more weight than minor job experience. The vast majority of candidates with very little job experience also do not have a lot, if any, personal projects. Anyone who has built anything stands out.

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