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A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

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Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#41

Post by apaprocki »

rabidsnail wrote: post #39
apaprocki wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#42

Post by scott_w »

jff wrote: post #3

I 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!

I totally agree with this.

I don't see any excuse whatsoever to take on an intern without paying them.

I think the closest I ever saw was when we brought a guy in for 3 days unpaid for him to learn on the system. He did no work in those 3 days, our company paid all his travel and food expenses, and he was pretty much guaranteed a job once the funding paperwork was filed. Personally, I would have preferred to pay him for the 3 days he was up, but then going somewhere to get free food is better than sitting at home paying for your own food ;-)

At least in the UK, there are plenty of opportunities to get funding for graduates. Call up your local universities and they will pay you to take people on.

My own internship was paid, with 2/3rds of my wage covered by my university. I'm now employed full-time here.

In summary, if you're looking for an internship, get one that pays. If nothing else, it shows other potential employers that you value your time appropriately.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#44

Post by doomlaser »

I interned at Apple in 2006 and it was a blast. I worked on the short-lived clickwheel iPod videogames team, one floor below Steve Jobs on the main campus. Apple has a great tradition of having all of its executives give informal hour-long talks with open Q&As to each summer's crop of interns.

It was one of my favorite work experiences, having been an Apple fan since childhood. But it also taught me that I wasn't super interested in working my way up in a huge company as a longterm career, at least at this point in my life.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#45

Post by scott_s »

philco wrote: post #5
jff wrote: post #3

I 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.

I have no disagreement that the experience is more important than the money, but in the US, if you are doing useful work for a company, then they legally have to pay you.

Being offered an unpaid internship should be a red flag. While it's possible for a tech company to have an intern around who does no useful work for the company, I find it unlikely. And, given that, any company that would willfully break labor law is probably going to be a bad place to work.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#46

Post by scott_s »

philco wrote: post #25
jff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm coming here from a slightly different angle, as a computer engineer, but here's how I see it. If you're going to work at a tiny little startup of 2-3 people, maybe they can't pay you. Of course, maybe they shouldn't be hiring interns at that stage of the game. I worked as an intern for a startup that size, though, and they still paid me $15/hour. If you're working somewhere larger, it only makes sense that they s…

Yep - I agree, you should get yours. Maybe there should be a more robust culture of giving interns equity at early stage startups. VC's hate cluttered cap tables...but it would be a fair way to compensate students for their work if the startup can't afford to pay them.

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.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#47

Post by ylem »

I got a lot out of interning (my background is physics) in high school and college--and in many cases, it was just learning what I didn't want to do.

Now, I work at a government lab--but I like to give back by serving as a mentor for internships. If anyone is interested (it may be a bit late), here is a link: http://nist.gov/surfgaithersburg/

I have taken on students from CS, physics, math, EE, etc. One student is applying for grad. schools in robotics, another is looking to join a startup in Alaska (if anyone has any pointers for him, let me know--he was a math/CS major and really good--we did some work on using comet to do web-based data analysis and to display live data from instruments)--others have gone on to physics grad. school, and one is working in industry. So, some of my interns have also learned what they don't want to do ;> My projects often involve a combination of science and programming--but there are other groups that have been working on android apps, cryptography, etc.

Generally, my goal (and for my colleagues) isn't to crank work out of students, but rather to give them exposure to research. I try to think of projects that my interns can own--I usually have several possibilities and try to match the students with the project. For our particular program, we pay for housing and a stipend of $5500 for the summer (11 weeks).

For high school students in the area, we also have a summer internship program (which doesn't pay--sorry), but again, I try to provide the students with projects that they can own.

One final thing--we are limited to US citizens...

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#48

Post by nwhitehead »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #13

Can someone describe what level of programming competence is needed for internships? I am really intimidated about applying and think I might drag a team down

It's not your job to decide if you are competent enough to be an asset to the team, it is the company's job. If you want the internship, apply. Let them do the work of figuring out if they want you.

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#49

Post by UnFleshedOne »

scott_s wrote: post #46
philco wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep - I agree, you should get yours. Maybe there should be a more robust culture of giving interns equity at early stage startups. VC's hate cluttered cap tables...but it would be a fair way to compensate students for their work if the startup can't afford to pay them.

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.)

Re: A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students

#50

Post by ybot »

apaprocki wrote: post #41
rabidsnail wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 from that of a new full-time employee. I imagine this was largely because it was a much smaller company with a much smaller product.

I don't mean this as a criticism – Bloomberg tries very hard to make sure interns have a great experience and usually succeeds. But there is a difference and I, personally, preferred the other experience.

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