How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
tessrinearson.com
How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
1–10 of 17 posts
Re: How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
#2Wow! I got an internship the summer before my senior yr of HS just like you mentioned - a little luck and a TON of perseverance. Way to go!
Re: How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
#3Great advice, but this seems like you need a trifecta of things going for you.
1. The right environment - going to school in Seattle or the Valley/SF, or even NY, the big companies are literally in your backyard, and you're aware of it. Meeting people, showing them your motivation is a lot easier in person.
2. Mentors in the Space - Unfortunately, most teachers aren't as awesome as yours, who was a great mentor and had cool connections.
3. Internal Motivation - For most high schoolers, I would say this is the biggest impediment. They (and I) didn't realize there was something actually cool you could do in high school, and we coasted, making programs on our calculators and doing math puzzles in the back of the room during class.
Of course, if I had discovered HN back then...who knows? Thanks for the great post though.
Re: How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
#4that's funny cause i intern at nasa as a high school student. but i don't think she was talking about me haha
Re: How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
#5You've done great things, but I find it slightly disingenuous for you to imply that the only thing standing between your average high school student and a great internship is talking to their teacher, attending an event and collecting business cards, and applying at NASA. Your particular situation is so massively weighted towards the unlikely that you can't really safely extrapolate from it.
Reading back a bit into your blog, you're clearly aware of the advantages you have had, and are trying to “not to be one of those people.” Just try to be aware that laying things out in overly broad blog posts about common sense networking techniques does not quite count as not being one of those people. Not that it's not good advice, but I think there are far more valuable uses of your time than trying to generalize from your experience and evangelize. Acknowledge your advantage, but don't assume that telling people to do the things that were successful with that advantage, maybe try to work against the systems that systemically give advantage to a select few while ignoring most.
Sorry for what has turned into a pseudo-lecture, you're doing good things, keep doing them. Just stay cognizant, that's all I ask =)
Re: How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
#6Great advice, but this seems like you need a trifecta of things going for you. 1. The right environment - going to school in Seattle or the Valley/SF, or even NY, the big companies are literally in your backyard, and you're aware of it. Meeting people, showing them your motivation is a lot easier in person. 2. Mentors in the Space - Unfortunately, most teachers aren't as awesome as yours, who was a great mentor and h…
> 1. The right environment - going to school in Seattle or the Valley/SF, or even NY, the big companies are literally in your backyard, and you're aware of it. Meeting people, showing them your motivation is a lot easier in person.
Great companies are everywhere. You've probably never heard of them because they can't afford to advertise on TV. You don't have to be in the countries 5 largest TV markets to find people bootstrapping really cool stuff.
In fact, I posit that not being where the cost of living is too damn high means more interesting bootstrappers. Bootstrappers love cheap labor, and who's cheaper than a high school intern?
Re: How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
#7The U.S. Dept of Energy has high school internships at many Labs:
http://csee.lbl.gov/Programs/high_school-other_labs.html
For those of you in Alameda or Contra Costa Counties, the Berkeley National Lab, where I work, has the following: http://csee.lbl.gov/Programs/BLIPS/index.html
Re: How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
#8Hmm, this sounds a bit like "how to get an internship if you have friends/family with great connections". Not really a scaleable solution.
However when you are young you have lots of free time and very low overheads. If you have decent tech skills there are plenty of things you can do to kickstart your career.
I was around 16 during the first dotcom boom, pretty much every business wanted a "website" but had no idea how to go about it. Even building simple HTML websites and uploading them to free hosts could earn you a hundred $ or so, which definitely beat working in the local deli with the other kids.
This was also the era of Windows 98, so everyone had PC problems, if you could pretty much guarantee a fix (usually just backup everything+reformat) every time and charged callouts at minimum wage you would get plenty of business.
This helped a lot with university applications too, as the professor dealing with admissions was impressed enough to drop the grade requirements (the only person they had dropped them for that year IIRC).
Not sure what the equivalent would be nowadays, but you could probably get a decent portfolio or a few $ doing work on freelance sites.
Re: How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
#9Hmm, this sounds a bit like "how to get an internship if you have friends/family with great connections". Not really a scaleable solution. However when you are young you have lots of free time and very low overheads. If you have decent tech skills there are plenty of things you can do to kickstart your career. I was around 16 during the first dotcom boom, pretty much every business wanted a "website" but had no idea…
"Hmm, this sounds a bit like "how to get an internship if you have friends/family with great connections". Not really a scaleable solution."
Actually very scalable. Social networks grow faster the further you reach. I got my first 'serious' internship thanks to my friend's girlfriend's dad. I'm from a small town and I worked at a place 2000 km away from home.
Re: How to Get a Kickass Internship as a High School Student
#10Great advice, but this seems like you need a trifecta of things going for you. 1. The right environment - going to school in Seattle or the Valley/SF, or even NY, the big companies are literally in your backyard, and you're aware of it. Meeting people, showing them your motivation is a lot easier in person. 2. Mentors in the Space - Unfortunately, most teachers aren't as awesome as yours, who was a great mentor and h…
> 1. The right environment - going to school in Seattle or the Valley/SF, or even NY, the big companies are literally in your backyard, and you're aware of it. Meeting people, showing them your motivation is a lot easier in person. Great companies are everywhere. You've probably never heard of them because they can't afford to advertise on TV. You don't have to be in the countries 5 largest TV markets to find people…
You're right, I was referring more to the startup culture in those areas. Unfortunately, all the examples I named are the large markets, but I would also include Portland, and some parts of Texas maybe? I've heard Las Vegas is trying to turn itself into a hub as well. If you know any cool places near Ann Arbor, MI, let me know! Olark and some other security startup is based in this really cool building, and we have a few events as well monthly.