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Computer science internships

N

npolly0212

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 21, 2015
1,374
463
hey all, I am currently a junior at the university of South Carolina - columbia. I have just started to get into wanting to find an internship (since it is not absolutely necessary). I went to a job fair and handed out 20-30 applications to internships that I found handy. So now I am just waiting to see if I hear back to any of them.

I have never had an interview before this process and had one set up with lowe's IT company for the internship over summer and was nervous as all get out. I was told that I did fantastic for my first ever interview, but had a few things I needed to work on.

I was just wondering if anybody could help me out with tips/pointers for anything regarding the process? Applying/interviewing/deciding on companies.

I have never been talked with about internships or anything before so not sure what to expect out of it.
 
smallcoffee said:
Go to your university's career services and have your resume reviewed and do mock interviews.
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That's the thing. I am in class all day during the times they do any of these things and they said they can't do anything about that..
 
Obligatory "I've never actually gotten a job before." Having said that:

Your county may have an office that can assist you in locating jobs within the county. Find out if there is such an office and, if so, maybe make an appointment to see a specialist.

Also, talk to your computer professors. I'm willing to bet they have at least one contact through which you can secure a job. Think of it this way: presumably, your professors have PhDs. They've most likely:

1) Been to all sorts of conferences and gotten to know some of the other attendees
2) Collaborated in research with quite a few people

They may even have had a classmate who expressed interest in the same thing you're doing.
 
moonman239 said:
Obligatory "I've never actually gotten a job before." Having said that:

Your county may have an office that can assist you in locating jobs within the county. Find out if there is such an office and, if so, maybe make an appointment to see a specialist.

Also, talk to your computer professors. I'm willing to bet they have at least one contact through which you can secure a job. Think of it this way: presumably, your professors have PhDs. They've most likely:

1) Been to all sorts of conferences and gotten to know some of the other attendees
2) Collaborated in research with quite a few people

They may even have had a classmate who expressed interest in the same thing you're doing.
Click to expand...
I appreciate it, I will have to look into it and talk to them. Most of them are foreigners so hard to understand at points so it's a pain in the butt lol
 
Just set them up, do them, get feedback, improve ... set up more ... <continue>

Really, learning the subtleties and intricacies of human interaction, even in the context of a job/internship interview just requires _doing_it_.

I'd suspect there's a TON of internships available around you area, hit up the web, job sites, company sites, talk to your counselors (100% agreed on doing that doing school hours, it's college, time to make things happen in an adult capacity :))

Tech companies tend to love interns, they get free/cheap labor, potentially "first dibs" if you represent some serious talent and it's great PR for them. One of my clients has used interns a few times, and a close friend of mine had a daughter that did an internship on the west coast (in school for tech), and as a result, she was hired +directly+ after graduation and now works for Amazon.

Good luck.
 
D.T. said:
Just set them up, do them, get feedback, improve ... set up more ... <continue>

Really, learning the subtleties and intricacies of human interaction, even in the context of a job/internship interview just requires _doing_it_.

I'd suspect there's a TON of internships available around you area, hit up the web, job sites, company sites, talk to your counselors (100% agreed on doing that doing school hours, it's college, time to make things happen in an adult capacity :))

Tech companies tend to love interns, they get free/cheap labor, potentially "first dibs" if you represent some serious talent and it's great PR for them. One of my clients has used interns a few times, and a close friend of mine had a daughter that did an internship on the west coast (in school for tech), and as a result, she was hired +directly+ after graduation and now works for Amazon.

Good luck.
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I appreciate it, I have applied for I believe close to 20 now in the past few weeks for over summer. Hoping I hear back from some of them soon.

I just get nervous in those situations and it messes with my mind lol
 
New recommendation: stop using 'lol' like punctuation :)

WRITE how you plan to SPEAK. If you're actually doing this:

"Hi, I believe my skills would be a perfect compliment to the team HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Then you might need some meds :D
 
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npolly0212 said:
Im

learning new material so if I miss any class ima be lost. That's what I have attempted but it didn't work out lol
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You can miss one class. I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but being able to land a job is much more important than missing one day of class in algorithms or data structures or something.
 
smallcoffee said:
You can miss one class. I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but being able to land a job is much more important than missing one day of class in algorithms or data structures or something.
Click to expand...

Agreed. In fact, I'd say if you can't miss a class, you may not be a legit CompSci/dev/intern. The people I've worked with and hired could've ducked of the _entire_ class and still kicked ass.
 
If you can't recover from missing a handful of classes throughout the semester then I have some bad news for you...

Just be glad you aren't doing out of state interviews where you're missing a couple days worth of classes at a time.
 
thanks for all of the comments. I really appreciate it! Will definitely be skipping a class if need be. I am waiting to hear back from any of the companies they said by the end of February so I have a while to wait before I will her back from any of them.
 
npolly0212 said:
thanks for all of the comments. I really appreciate it! Will definitely be skipping a class if need be. I am waiting to hear back from any of the companies they said by the end of February so I have a while to wait before I will her back from any of them.
Click to expand...

Follow up with them by email and thank them for the interview. Or call. Or if you can, write them a letter.
 
smallcoffee said:
Follow up with them by email and thank them for the interview. Or call. Or if you can, write them a letter.
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I have contacted a few by email thanking them, and they gave me some pointers/tips on a few things to work on which I was very grateful for! Thanks for the tips. Will definitely do some more things.
 
npolly0212 said:
I have contacted a few by email thanking them, and they gave me some pointers/tips on a few things to work on which I was very grateful for! Thanks for the tips. Will definitely do some more things.
Click to expand...

Best of luck. The best way to get good at interviewing is to:

1. Go to career fairs and learn how to talk the talk
2. Learn enough about the company you're interested in to be able to talk about that company
3. Practice interviews
4. Go to the interview like you don't need the job
 
smallcoffee said:
Best of luck. The best way to get good at interviewing is to:

1. Go to career fairs and learn how to talk the talk
2. Learn enough about the company you're interested in to be able to talk about that company
3. Practice interviews
4. Go to the interview like you don't need the job
Click to expand...

Ppreciate it. That's the thing is I get nervous with stuff so I mainly need to work with interviewing and will use those tips you mentioned!
 
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