My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old • Hacker News Board

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#51

Post by daven14 » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 4:31 AM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #25

rurounijones wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the entire point of "interns" was to give young people (i.e. teenagers) the chance to work in a real company and get experience, usually over school holidays etc. I think SV (and maybe modern capitalism) has corrupted the term "intern" to be "an excuse for us to not pay you" without the other benefits experienced by the "intern". [EDIT] I should clarify that I am a Brit and never heard the term "intern" use…

Not really true. There is no corruption. White House internship doesn't pay anyone and is one of the hottest place to work for since days. It's entirely a decision people make. You don't want the money but the experience, you can go for it. No one is forcing you to take a job without salary.

Internships are also good at keeping out the wrong sort of people. Lets face it - if you can't afford to go to work and not get paid then you're not really from a good family, and we don't want the wrong sort of people invading our jobs. Someone with a few internships is obviously from the right stock and we can safely employ them, providing of course they go to our club.

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#52

Post by untitledwiz » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 4:32 AM UTC

logn wrote: post #41

untitledwiz wrote: post #24

Please, go outside, play and run around. Learn to skate, get a boyfriend/girlfriend. There will be so much opportunity for work later on in life. Definitely spend time coding if that's what you love but don't make it your everything. Develop other aspects of your personality/intelligence/body equally. Best wishes!

> There will be so much opportunity for work later on in life Absolutely. But the best programmers are the ones who never wanted to do it for the money anyhow (and got into it simply because it's interesting and enjoyable). Moderation is key to everything. However... You can have it all. Being passionate about something breathes life into all aspects of you and the people around you. It's a lot more fun to be talking…

> Moderation is key to everything.

Amen.

Your thoughts are a great extension of what I had in mind, agree with everything you said.

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#53

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 4:39 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#54

Post by shalinshah » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 4:46 AM UTC

azamsharp1 wrote: post #39

We need more kids like you! I see kids these days with their heads down in their mobile device playing games, facebook, instagram, snapchat and what not! They are wasting precious time. Time that will never come back!!!

Most of the kids my age are doing exactly what you just described above. I want to be the person making games and apps that other teens get addicted to.

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#55

Post by OvidNaso » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 4:46 AM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #48

philangist wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids definitely still watch cartoons. A lot. Source: currently watching Regular Show with my 4 younger siblings.

While I agree with your conclusion, one household of data isn't particularly relevant to what most children do.

How about the legion of animation programming that's commissioned every year?

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#56

Post by corin_ » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 4:51 AM UTC

OvidNaso wrote: post #55

corin_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with your conclusion, one household of data isn't particularly relevant to what most children do.

How about the legion of animation programming that's commissioned every year?

Like I said, I agree with his conclusion that lots of kids still watch cartoons, just pointing out that his knowing a few kids who do isn't proof of this.

To put it into HN cliché phrasing: the plural of anecdote is not data, even if the anecdote matches the data.

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#57

Post by xerophtye » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 5:03 AM UTC

onedev wrote: post #5

Man when I was that age, my only concern in the world was trading Pokemon cards after school. I wouldn't have given up that carefree experience for the world. I don't know how I feel when I read about things like this. It starts off as jealousy that the kids started their "career" at such a young age, then respect towards them for the same reason, but then I feel sad because at the end of the day I feel like they're…

Ok i recently realized that i had started game development at a VERY young age. Apparently i was 8 or 9 back then. Me and cousin of the same age, worked on Macromedia Flash. I am not saying we built the most amazing games back then, but it was a start. Sure I had briefcase full of pokemon cards (which i took to trade meetings) but that doesn't mean I didnt have time for game dev. I dont know about OP but for us it was never a "career" thing. It was "play". We had fun making that stuff. Amongst all the other fun things we used to do, game dev was just another one of em =)

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#58

Post by xerophtye » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 5:06 AM UTC

untitledwiz wrote: post #24

Please, go outside, play and run around. Learn to skate, get a boyfriend/girlfriend. There will be so much opportunity for work later on in life. Definitely spend time coding if that's what you love but don't make it your everything. Develop other aspects of your personality/intelligence/body equally. Best wishes!

What makes you think a guy who loves programming wouldn't be doing those things?

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#59

Post by iyulaev » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 5:09 AM UTC

flylib wrote: post #13

iyulaev wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a good internship will look much better on a college app than a few extra points. Sadly, nope, unless you're applying to a high-end private school. I know the UC system doesn't care at all about your work experience, and even if you founded a company when you were in HS, that would at best be worth 150-300 SAT points. Now that I think about it, it's scary that I still remember this.

it will look better on a resume for jobs/further internships down the road though which is just as important anyway

Agree that it will look better, and is probably a better experience. Sadly college admissions is a game, and it is risky to ignore it.

Re: My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

#60

Post by krrishd » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 5:27 AM UTC

throwaway344 wrote: post #32

zachlatta wrote: post #23

I think what you're doing is really neat. I'm also a high school student and I'm always excited to meet others my age. I'd love it if you could shoot me an email over at zach@zachlatta.com.

Thinking about it, we should probably make up a high school-age HNers group. My email is adam.davies@outlook.com for more details.

I've already been working on a community for high-school coders at http://www.teen2geek.com, and so once we launch (beta will be out in January 2014) I would really love it if some more guys like you could come over and contribute to the discussions. My email address is krishna.dholakiya@gmail.com in case anyone wants to talk :)