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The Internship That Students Drool Over

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the become-a-sith-lord dept.

selan writes "The Baltimore Sun has a feature on Microsoft's internship program and why it is so popular with college students. Not only are interns paid, but they also receive the same perks as other Microsoft employees. At the end of the summer they are treated to a catered barbecue at Bill Gates's house and have a good shot at a full time job after graduation. You do not know the power of the Dark Side."

7 of 582 comments (clear)

  1. great employer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My wife worked at Microsoft for a couple of years, and they are a GREAT employer. In terms of corporate culture they really rock.

    Their raises are always above average, their stock options used to rock (the stock has flatlined for the past 2 years, but before that it went up something like 50-75% ever year).

    They have volleyball courts, stand-up video games in almost every hallway, pizza parties, great hardware to play with, great buildings, nice walking/jogging paths right near campus.

    And everyone there LOVES Microsoft. They love being part of an org that's in the forefront of technology.

    It's pretty amazing to see.

    Anyone who hasn't should read Microserfs. While it may not be based on a true life story, it definitely captures the essence of Microsoft.

  2. Personal internship experience. by LeiGong · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The Interview
    Not only does Microsoft fly you out to Seattle/Redmond for the 2nd round interviews (all expenses paid), they also give you an extra day to tour the city. Which is very nice of them.

    Each interview tends to last 1 hour, like Rafi said and questions vary between positions. For Program Managers (PMs) questions are more scenario based, for Software Design Engineers (SDEs) the questions are almost all programming and algorithm questions. Most questions do not tend to have the "right" answers but the interviewers are looking at how the candidates think.

    The Internship

    Once an offer is accepted by the intern, MS takes care of all the traveling details. From the plane ticket, to the apartment, to the subsidized car rental (I'll talk about this more later), to shipping your computer and stuff to Redmond. Perhaps the most interesting perk is that MS will help you rent a car. Normally, a driver has to be at least 25 years old to rent a car, but with MS interns as young as 18 are able to rent cars. This eventually leads to many accidents a year, the costs of which are all covered by MS. :)

    Interns and recruiters also team up to sponsor lots of activities to keep the geeks happy. Activities range from a Puzzle Day, a full day of team-based puzzle solving, to a scavenger hunt through Seattle, to a ski trip to Whistler (only a 3-4hr drive). Other perks also includ free membership to the posh Pro Club gym and a corporate card that offers special discounts to all the sights and attractions across the Pudget Sound area.

    Personally, I had a great time as an intern at MS and would do it again in a hard beat. The only complaint I had was male intern to female intern ratio.

    1. Re:Personal internship experience. by ojQj · · Score: 5, Interesting

      (Sorry that I'm reposting this -- this is my first time posting on Slashdot and I messed up my first attempt)
      > Personally, I had a great time as an intern at
      > MS and would do it again in a hard beat. The
      > only complaint I had was male intern to female
      > intern ratio.

      Speaking as a former female intern at Microsoft, for me the negatives outweighed the positives. In the group I was in I was the female developer. The men tended to be very cruel in various ways (not just to me -- also to each other). I suspect this problem wouldn't have occured if there had been more women in the group. Listening to them talk about women who had formerly been in the group, positively frightened me. Either none of those women were competant, or a woman was incapable of proving any kind of worth to these men.

      I had a great deal of trouble getting attention from my mentor when I needed help with my first experiences in Windows programming. The other intern in my group got interesting projects and the help he needed to learn how to do them. I got boring projects which I found it difficult to get motivated for, and which focused more on exactly the things in which I had little experience, rather than on one of my strengths. And I got seriously slammed when I made mistakes stemming from my lack of experience, thus further reducing my motivation.

      The male intern to female intern ratio was also a problem for the female interns, because many of the male interns would go all wierd around us. Bad hit-ons, and just plain standing and staring were common. There were also occasionally borderline-sexist comments in the intern newsgroup. The woman in human resource in charge of the intern program, had to delete some comments from the newsgroup that went over the line. I don't think it would have been this way if there had been more women -- the men would have quickly learned that we are normal human beings just like them.

      All in all, I did fairly badly at Microsoft (although I have done very well at numerous other software development internships), because I was not in an environment where I could concentrate and learn and feel motivated. Because I take a great deal of pride in my work, and like doing a good job, and because Microsoft was not an environment in which I could realize even a fraction of my potential, I would not go back to work for them. The perks are nice and I certainly did enjoy them, but they don't make up for the fact that it was a bad job.

  3. Re:Experience by LeiGong · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not everyone is expected to work 50+ hours a week or even more than 40 hours a week. It all depends on your group and where they are in the product developement cycle. I can speak for myself and some of my friend when I say we were in by 10 and out by 7, every Monday through Friday. We had social lives outside of the office and almost NEVER went into the office on weekends unless we needed to use the high-speed connection to surf the web (we didn't have high-speed in the apartments). If he didn't take advantage of the Pudget Sound area, he really missed out on the whole intern experience.

  4. Re:Are most internships unpaid then? by Amroarer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Few crumbs? Did you read the article?

    Say what you like about Microsoft's software/market policy/lawyers, they look like they genuinely take care of their employees. The pay is good (damn good for an intern - about twice what I earned as a student engineer on a vaguely similar scheme in the UK). The working conditions are good. They appear to offer considerable freedom in your working practices.

    All of these things are genuinely attractive to a graduating student. Hey, if I was thinking of switching jobs now, they're high up on the list of things I'd be looking for too. Working for a company which actually seems to care about you is a very fulfilling experience.

  5. I did it... it rocked... by ipmcc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was an MS Intern several years ago. (And was a MacPhile and OSS proponent the whole time.) It was probably the single best work experience I've ever had. And that's even after I mention that my boss and I clashed at every turn and I ultimately got a "no hire" recommendation, pretty much blacklisting me from ever working there again. You can hate the way they do business, or their FUD marketing or whatever you want, but at the end of the day, working there is like being an endowed researcher at the coolest, most well-funded university on earth, where they only let in the uber-smart. It was easily the highest concentration of smart people I've ever had the pleasure of being around. If someone had handed me a crystal ball and told me the shit the economy was about to become I would have kissed some serious ass and made sure I got an offer there.

    --
    This too shall pass.
  6. Re:I internerd by iso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Tell me about it.

    I went to the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. This is one of Microsoft's favourite schools to recruite from, because of the co-op program and because the students are easily moldable. I knew a lot of classmates that went to work at Microsoft for internships and full-time work. After all was said and done, most agreed that Microsoft was exactly as you stated--it's filled with young geeks who don't know what they're missing (and are easily wooed by gadgets), and a bunch of older geeks with no social lives that never leave the Microsoft Campus. They also woo the younger ones by giving them titles like "Project Manager" to make them feel important.

    One of my female friends who worked there came back with some real horror stories: the older men there are so desperate they'll throw a tonne of money at any employee with breasts just for a chance at having a date. She said she would never go near that company again.

    Is it any wonder where the Microsoft attitude of everything-must-be-Microsoft comes from? The vast majority of employees there never leave the campus and are fed the Microsoft party-line constantly. If you think the Apple "reality distortion field" is bad, try a day on the Microsoft campus.

    Blech. At Waterloo we learned that only the pathetic people who were willing to give up their lives for money were the ones who interned at Microsoft. In case you haven't noticed, the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth. :)

    - j