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!
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:<p>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 be taught. You have to make things, put them in front of large numbers of people, and see how they react. You can get this experience by building a startup and going on the long march of getting traction. Or you can work for a startup that already has traction and observe their users. The latter is obviously way easier.<p>2. If you're good you'll probably get a job offer right away instead of an option to take a job after you graduate. If you're the sort of person that needs a piece of paper in order to feel like you're worth something this might not matter. But if you're in it for the work itself, you can save yourself two years of salary plus tuition.<p>In a related note to point 1, work for a consumer-facing startup if you can. The way consumers behave and the way business customers behave are completely different, and consumers are a lot more fun to work for.
I'll add that if you do multiple internships, do them at multiple places. At this point in your career, getting breadth of experience is far more valuable than depth.
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
I really like the "try to have at least two internships: one at a small start-up and one at a tech company" sentiment. Internships aren't just for your resume, they're for you to figure out what areas in the business you like and to gain a variety of skills and experiences.
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.<p>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:
<a href="http://nist.gov/surfgaithersburg/" rel="nofollow">http://nist.gov/surfgaithersburg/</a><p>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.<p>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).<p>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.<p>One final thing--we are limited to US citizens...
As a Junior at Berkeley who's had some internship experience, let me add me two cents worth.<p>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 following years.<p>Startups are definitely a good option for an internship. What I see a lot of the time, especially here at Cal, is that nobody wants to work anywhere besides Google, Apple, Microsoft or Facebook. People don't bother with any company that doesn't have a huge name and since many of these students don't have any prior work experience before applying to these tech giants, they get rejected. I think that's a huge mistake. I learned more from my summer working at a startup than a years worth of schooling (and it's not bad learning while being paid).<p>One last note, GPA doesn't seem to matter as much as work experience. While it can never hurt to have a good GPA, I've been on dozens of interviews and not once have I been asked for my GPA.
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.<p>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.
I work at Microsoft right now. Our intern program is by far the easiest way to get hired on. Tons of people on our teams are former interns. That's another thing to take away from this - if you get an internship with a larger company, you'll probably get an offer if you do well. Use this to your advantage, don't wait til you've graduated to start looking for jobs. Use your internship capabilities to give you a leg into the field.
I did a summer internship at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, NM and had an awesome experience. I got to hack video cameras, sola panels, and Wireshark. Also got to see the Trinity site.<p>My biggest piece of advice with summer internships: go somewhere else! Moving to Albuquerque for the summer was awesome and gave me a great experience of what it's like to live on my own.
Ah hah, the first comic on the page <a href="http://i.imgur.com/zmhnE.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/zmhnE.png</a> has happened to me -_-
No matter what though, it still is a lot better than sitting on the couch applying to clean the bathrooms in Walmart. At least I have my "In."
You're totally spot on Alexey, as usual. Referrals are king...according to our data at Meeteor.com, every person in your network is connected to 200 people across 20 different industries. Pretty powerful stuff - chances are the job you're looking for is just a friend away.
Does anyone know anything more about interning at US companies as a foreigner that's <i>not</i> studying there? I know you can apply for the J1 visa, but I'm not sure how hard it is for companies to take on interns on such a visa. I'm from the Netherlands by the way.
I'm surprised that none of the first few comments I read thought engineering internships might NOT be such a good idea.<p>I tell every engineering student I meet not to get an internship, which is why I always have a hard time hiring internships. Instead, I recommend creating projects of your own, if it's not in IT, it might be in the community, the student body or some other organization. Try to improve or create something on your own. As a CS student it's likely you'll find a job after college and you'll quickly learn all the things mentioned in the article and comments (including discovering what you don't like).<p>During your college breaks you're free to be completely self-directed. Depending on your career choice it'll take a long time (if ever) until you get that opportunity again!<p>I think I might b
Minor correction regarding OPT durations: you're allowed up to 12 months by default, and you can get a 17-month extension on top of that if you're a STEM major.
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.