Either the article is completely wrong about GPA or I must be an outlier. I barely had a 3.0 in college and got multiple internships at "Major" companies.
A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
51–60 of 71 posts
Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can't afford to pay someone for work [edit: in the US, can't speak for other countries], it's illegal for them to work for you. It doesn't matter if they're a student and you call it an internship, even if they get credit for it.
What's the purpose of this law? (I would normally expect opposite -- that it is illegal for you to hire them if you can't afford it.)
Perhaps you misunderstood me, so let me state it another way: you must pay people who work for you, even if their title is "intern." To do otherwise circumvents the minimum wage laws.
Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I generally meant some kind of digestible deliverable within the context of the core product. You need to have a well defined goal that is achievable within the amount of time the person is there, otherwise it will not be a good experience for the intern or the company. So let me correct... most of what is produced by interns is part of the core product and released to production.
As a former Bloomberg intern, you're right – you try very hard to make sure interns are working on real projects that are deliverable over the course of the summer. That said, the projects are often completely isolated from what will have real impact on users on a day to day basis. This isn't a problem, per se, but I've had other internships where the work I was doing over the summer was virtually indistinguishable f…
It also depends a lot on what team you wind up picking. Just speaking for the interns in our infrastructure team, we try to make them develop things that have an impact. You should let me know what group you were with so I can deliver the anonymous feedback :)
Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
#54As 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…
I also went to a school nobody has heard of, but haven't really had issues getting job offers straight out of school (or for that matter, an internship while a high school student). Of course, as you've said, once you have some industry experience under your belt, it ceases to matter altogether.
By the way, awesome handle! I'd refer you for an interview based on that alone.
Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
...really? It's not about the money..it's about the experience. Granted, an internship that pays you + gives you the experience you're seeking is a jackpot, but I would always rank experience over money. I worked 20 hours a week in college (and my summers) mostly for free, and I don't regret a second of it. Learned more through those opportunities than anything that would have paid me.
Philip - unpaid internships are not inherently evil, but the market for tech interns is strong enough that most everybody should be able to find a paying internship. It's a different standard in tech - the only interns not being paid are the ones nobody told better.
In the fantasy world in which labor laws are obeyed for the good of employees, an unpaid internship should inherently mean you don't do any real work. Otherwise it would ostensibly be illegal.
Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
#56Either the article is completely wrong about GPA or I must be an outlier. I barely had a 3.0 in college and got multiple internships at "Major" companies.
Very interesting - which companies/school, if I may ask?
I think if you've done extraordinary things outside classes (great internships, awesome research, major open source contributions or own projects), you don't need a great GPA to stand out. But for most students graduating today, that's not the case.
Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
#57Any advice for high school students who don't have Upperclassman to look up to for advice?
I reached out to Mixpanel (mixpanel.com) last spring as a high school senior (with no professional programming experience, but a couple of decent sized projects and a decent amount of experience). I ended up going through their interview process, getting an offer, and then going out to San Francisco and working at Mixpanel for 3 months. The experience was indescribably valuable, and if you think you are experienced, I'd definitely recommend going for it. Even if you don't think you are experienced enough, I would recommend going for it, because worst case is you don't have an internship, which is the exact same as if you don't do anything at all.
The "Who's Hiring" monthly threads are a good place to start looking.
Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
#58I didn't see this on there, so let me add: There is no reason, in the year 2012, for a CS or engineering student to take an unpaid internship. Depending where you go, you can expect over $20/hour as a student intern--if you're doing work of real value, you deserve to be paid!
...really? It's not about the money..it's about the experience. Granted, an internship that pays you + gives you the experience you're seeking is a jackpot, but I would always rank experience over money. I worked 20 hours a week in college (and my summers) mostly for free, and I don't regret a second of it. Learned more through those opportunities than anything that would have paid me.
Not all of us had the opportunity to "rank experience over money". Some of us had to earn money during the summers just to get by and hoped to find an opportunity to do that with a relevant internship.
Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
#59Startup 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…
Microsoft is much the same in this regard.
Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I also went to a school nobody has heard of, but haven't really had issues getting job offers straight out of school (or for that matter, an internship while a high school student). Of course, as you've said, once you have some industry experience under your belt, it ceases to matter altogether. By the way, awesome handle! I'd refer you for an interview based on that alone.
Heh, thanks :) though I often get asked why 'int3' when an integer has at least four bytes...