Slashdot Mirror
Internships in the Post-DotCom Era?
aetherspoon asks: "Reading the Internship at Microsoft story, I was wondering what paid jobs were actually still out there for CS majors in the industry. Coming from a CS major who has a stack of 'We're sorry, but...' letters sitting on his desk, I know that I have not had much luck in this area. Are there any places left offering good paid internships?"
No.
I myself would be interested in the answers to this question, as I am going to be looking for some internships coming up next year. I could probably get CS type internships, I'm good at that sort of thing, but I'm actually majoring in NE (Nuclear Engineering)
sig? uhh, umm, ok
Caljobs is an excellent site if you are living in California
good luck dude.
If the people Computer Science degree have trouble finding real jobs today, I wonder what it would be with people with MIS degree.
The dotCOM market is now featured in many INFOMERCIAL.
That's a sign of the time.
Now I have to get my own mochas.
tap.tap.tap. is this thing on?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But it wasn't paid and they didn't give you kneepads.
From what I understand, they've cancelled the program, though.
I have been pwned because my
...instead of looking for a job right now. If you are an undergraduate, go get a Master degree. If you are holding a Master degree, go get a PHD. The time you finish your education, the economy may have recovered, and you are right there to ride the next wave.
Good luck.
I am currently a college student working towards a degree in Computer Engineering. As far as internships go here, to have a chance at one you need to apply to the major companies that give the your University money, such as Wal-Mart, JB Hunt, Axciom, and some others in my school's case.
-Poo will never be unfunny.
I know plenty of students who have very nice internships that are C.S. majors? Perhaps it depends on what school you go to? In fact, I don't know of many who had decent GPAs who applied and did not get an internship.
I'm a highly experienced programmer who's been out of work for a month. When I send a resume, I ocassionally get an auto-reponse, but that's it.
To this end, I suggest graduate study in another field. Many graduate programs in the hard sciences (especially PhD programs in the sciences) offer good compensation packages and sometimes include low-cost housing. On top of that, you don't have to pay off your student loans for a while.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
Good one! I always get my daily dose of humor on Slashdot. But, uh, seriously, there are some paid internships in government, however, they're generally the summer ones.
It all may depend on your resumee and the interviews. I have had a lot of luck (very little rejections).
But anyways, I think an internship is a great opportunity - even if it is unpaid.
Well the hired me anyway... and about a hundread others.
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I've had a hellish time trying to get a job.. I started using Token Ring networks running Novell servers at the age of 11 with the system administrator at my school, I then later got into NT then Linux.. But even after all that, we are just not needed anymore.. I dont even think i should bother with certifications..
But then again, Computer repair is growing, grandma usually cant fix her cdrom from being used as a cup holder on her own..
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
and summer camps were hiring camp councilors. The Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines were all looking for new recruits. Some non-profit organizations were looking for volunteers.
That's about it.
It is almost summer time, I myself am going to look for a job in construction.
graduate school.
I cant even get that!
Well I've got an internship at Sun Microsystems... Actually everyone I know has an internship and they're all in CS. Companies like Qualcomm, IBM, Microsoft, man the list goes on and on. Oh yeah. I forgot I go to an "inferior" Canadian university. Sorry. U of Waterloo BTW in Canada intership's are called COOPs. Cheers, Andrew
I started out as a lowly tech grunt in my University's IT department, and moved up through the ranks getting experience and skills. When I was getting closer to graduation, I was able to obtain an great internship with the IT organization. It paid incredible for a student job ($11 an hour) and gave me the freedom to experiment with technology and projects.
I'd credit the experiences I had with the University internship while I was going to school to be the reason I have a Network Administration position right now.
EA has an internship program.
As a Computer Engineering student, I have found a LOT of great paid internships still out there. This may have to do with my previous experience with prior internships and therefore may not be indicative of the norm. While my internships have never been with as many benifits nor with as high of pay as Microsoft, I am still pleased with what I have been able to obtain.
This year I had several offers but I ultimately chose NASA.
I wonder if this will get modded down as flamebait by other students who did not get any offers? Oh well.
*
troll blacklist. Please mo
Sorry your out of luck just like me. i did find an internship last year paid crap and wasn't really CS related by it passes... just enough to allow me to graduate. now im looking for a cs job while working at resturant to pay the bills.
We're sorry, but...no.
In the end, if you're in college and can find a good paying internship, that's great. But you have to keep in mind that you want to find something that can give you valuable experience, or at least more CS experience than working at Best Buy. Also, sometimes looking out of CS helps find untapped areas. There are many profs in non computer departments that need CS people. Who do you think writes the programs that psych majors use for their experiments. These aren't always amazing jobs but they might be better than a summer fixing broken comps. I was interested in Bio and wound up with a job for this summer setting up a gene database, it may end up being just a simple database programming job, but it's better than taking summer school.
You don't tell anybody where you live, what University or any relevant information. What do you want us to do? Search in all job engines and look a job for you?
My university has a "co-op" programs, have you tried to see if yours does too. I can see several positions open, companies like these because they're cheap labor.
But if you are serious about looking for interships or coops, maybe you need to get serious and do better searching yourself, or at the very least, provide relevant information!
Geez, kids today!
- sigs are for wimps.
You can be a team player. Sure its not so much as developing software, but using already integrated e-commerce software products (knowing which button is used to super-size a meal for instance). Corporate employers always look to see technical ability, ability to follow instructions, as well as being part of a successful team environment.
In other words, C.S. students are a dime a dozen, just like mcdonald's employees. What makes you stand out?
You know some math above first year calculus? You know some science above first year biology? Do you know anything besides programming? If you don't, then don't expect to get a job that any other second year CS student can get. Cause you won't get it unless you know someone (which is still the best bet for finding internships).
Microsoft. I thought you already knew that...
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
Looking for a job or internship, at least in my area and possibly yours to is the "Business and Computer Information Systems" kids.
At my university the above quote is an actual major one can get through the business college. It is a relic of the dot-com boom. It is mostly business classes with some computer related electives. Obviously these BCIS kids take the easist electives and as such end up with massive GPAs, like 3.9, vs the kids who took the man's major, CS, and were proud to end up with a 3.4. Business kids learn all the terms and with the required communications classs, interview well. So in an interview they may sound inteligent, and the word 'computer' in their degree seems impressive enough. But its a total sham and a discrase to computer science and hardcore business students everywhere.
The moral of the story is not only are there slim pickins for internships but now you gotta compete with johny frat boy who knows nothing except maybe what ATM and some other acronims stand for but get him to use it in a sentince.
Prehaps doing what you enjoy isnt that great of an idea right now if what you enjoy is computer science. the world is goin to hell in a hand basket, and so is my karma.
The "dot.com bubble burst" three years ago, now the students that went into university to study Computing Science purely because of the "get rich quick" scheme are graduating. They are having problems getting into work.
Now let's think.... 5 years ago there was maybe a tenth of the people doing CS as there are now, internships were available and reasonably well paid. Now all these companies have ten times the applicants that would originally have applied (but this time the other 9 want the money not the job).
If you were a CS company. Who would you want to hire?
to check Google, right?
I suppose it depends on your school too.
I'm in the same situation, majoring in CS/Math at UT Dallas, I actually work in a bank right now, in credit card services, because I went through a year of those "i'm sorry" letters and almost lost my lease. Now I'm moving up in the financial industry but I'm still looking for a CS-type job, go figure. I help the IT dept here, but that is pretty much the extent of my CS work at the bank, other than that I work in fraud protection. Dallas has suffered a bit, as everywhere. Generally right now would be a good time to expand your knowledge and work on education, as co-opts and internships aren't likely to come about.
It may also depend on which university you are attending as to the internships that are available to you. Kettering University (the old GM Institute (GMI)) in Flint Michigan has a program where every other term is a co-op. Graduates usually have a high degree of placement in CS, EE, ME, Management ... But they do not guarantee a coop and students are having trouble finding them in this economy. The Co-ops are usually in the 9-15 $ an hour range when they are available.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
In our coop program we have found that since the big companies who used to hire the majority of our class (Nortel, Alcatel etc..) stoped posting jobs a lot of smaller companies are coming forward to fill in. I have a work term this term with a company of 13 people but I'm designing an embedded system from scratch and sticking linux on it. It's a great project but the pay isn't as high as I've had in the past. My advice for you is to check on the local start-ups in your neighbourhood. They are always looking for cheap talent. Although this being my 5th work term also helps out a lot when looking :) Startups offer great experience if you can get hired on with one. Looks great on the resume for when you want to look for a Microsoft job when you graduate.
"I believe in everything in moderation. Including moderation." -Dean DeLeo, Stone Temple Pilots
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...can put up with Hartford, Connecticut, you can swing one of 20 jobs within telecom at a big insurer... wait, big insurer...Hartford...STAY HOME!!
I'm a CS major, and I decided to work construction this summer rather than chase an elusive internship. The way I look at it, I'm going to have many years ahead of me where I will be spending my summers working behind a desk. So while I still have a chance, I'm going to take some time and have a job where I can work outside, hang out with my friends (who will be working at the same company), and generally relax (save for inspection days). There is something to be said for getting outside and hauling some lumber or pounding some nails. Admittedly, it is probably not something I would want to do for years and years, but for a summer it can be a pretty good time. It gives you a good sense of balance in life, something that CS majors tend to lack.
Some people like my father have scoffed at this and told me that I "need" to get an internship now or I'll get left behind. I'm sure many other CS majors here have felt the same pressure. However, I think this is when you should take a step back and look at why you got into CS in the first place. I did it because it is something I love to do; the potentially lucrative job market is an added bonus. So what if I don't get an internship and I don't make $foo money when I get a job after school? I'm confident in my abilities so that I will do well in the long run. However, as long as I make enough to live comfortably, I'm happy with that because I would much rather do CS than get a degree like Business where I really have no interest.
Don't take this as saying internships aren't important. It is definitely a good idea to go out and get some real world CS experience. (You can do this to some extent with open source projects on your own schedule.) But just remember, jobs/money are NOT the be all end all when it comes to CS or any other field. Don't forget to enjoy yourself sometimes or you will be left as one of those bitter coders getting mid-life crises in a not-so distant future.
Im not sure of other colleges but I do know Golden West College in Huntington Beach California offers a work study program. I have a friend or two that either have or are currenly working in TSS[Tech Support Services] via work study. Just a thought.
And you got a stack of them? Lucky! When I was looking, I generally heard nothing at all.
But I did eventually find a job. The market is terrible at the moment, but nobody knows what the future will bring.
My company hired a coop (we're a 5 person shop, so we only have one). Despite getting lots of resumes via email, I rarely read them. This one came to me from my cousin. Previous hires came from people recommended to me by people in my fraternity.
People I know that are still undergrads are mostly people from my college fraternity (i.e. they were freshman my senior year or first year out when I visited friends there). The ones getting jobs are the ones that network well. The rest are finding research jobs on campus.
The days where you float your resume and get 20 phone calls are over. Sorry.
Time to work on the people skills.
Alex
If you are serious about landing a job, bashfully asking for a low-or-no paying internship position is completely worthless. In a job market like this, no manager is looking for the smooth young minds to take under their wing and mold into productive, successful workers. They are looking for the people that can get the job done, make the manager look good, and not gripe and grouse about petty issues.
The only way to crack into such a market when you are green is to really dazzle 'em with examples of sharp work and present yourself as someone pleasant to work with!
Also, never try to land a job through an HR department. If you can't get direct access to a project manager, meet someone who can. Try thinking from the perspective of a project manager: He/She wants to look good in front of the peers and boss and make sure the new hire isn't going to rub the existing team wrong and waste a lot of time with interpersonal drama to resolve.
What year are you? I was very fortunate in getting some terrific work experience on-campus; (I was at Tufts 1992-1996.) I started as a "PC Lab User Consultant" and parlayed that into being the student manager of the PC lab--I just showed a little ambition and smarts. (When I asked why I got it over some of the other UCs they were interviewing, they said I was the only who seemed to really want it.) I also got some terrific programming experience at the "Curricular Software Studio", an on-campus program that had student programmers working with various faculty members on interesting software projects (usually dependent on grant money-- that gave me 2 summers programming Win32 code by the time I graduated. I also got some small change as an undergrad TA for the entry level Comp Sci classes (I kind of accidentally made the decision to lean towards the general user labs rather than the academics, so I mighta missed out on some good sysadmin chances.) And also Tufts has this program called the "X-college" (as in experimental) that lets undergrads design a for-credit (but graded pass-fail) course; I taught one in Visual Basic, which was still kind of a novelty on campus in the mid-90s.
Some of these opportunities were probably unique to my time and place, but don't overlook the academic environment as a place to get solid experience. I had a kickass resume when I graduated, and only left campus for fun.
(Hell, IIRC I think NPR this morning mentioned schools in Massachusetts were one area that increased # of jobs)
YMMV, of course.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
PBS has several internship slots open this summer, including ones for CS or EE students.
Stop reading Slashdot and go to work. Really.
I remember back when I was in college, I kept on getting letters from the US Navy, asking me to apply for jobs as a reactor tech on nuclear subs, so you might want to try that. (Unless you're a big fan of daylight and regular bathing...nah, this is Slashdot.) Scary thing is, I was an econ/poli sci major.
Consider how bad it is to have a wife, house, etc and no job. It's a lot worse than not having a paid internship.
My suggestion is that you spend the summer reading. Maybe subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and learn something other than how to bang out code? Turn off the TV, put down the pipe, and READ.
If I was in your situation, I'd probably take a few classes in Chinese at your local community college to suppliment my learning. Can you imagine the responses a programmer would get if he put "speaks fluent Chinese" on his resume?
If you can't beat 'em join 'em!
I'm a Computer Engineering major at a good school. Internships are much harder to come by than in the past. depending on your school, professors may be a good place to look for work, about 25% of profs in my department have founded or co-founded companies, and probably 80% have strong ties with industry. You also might want to look into doing research for your professors. But it probably depends on where you're going to school.
Another tip is to look at local companies, its often a lot easier to convince some one that they want to hire you if they don't have to pay to have you move out there.
Finally, as a senior going to grad school have managed to crack into some of the well recognized companies with big names and cool products. But since everyon wants to work for big important companies, they are a lot more choosy, try scanning through nasdaq and finding tech companies that are big, but not well known.
I know that gov't contractors are looking to hire.
Also, if you end up jobless in the tech arena, get some burger flipping job part time, and set a goal to write a program you can advertise next year, a game, some open source project, something you can brag about. I've had companies flatly refuse me based on my gpa until I said "yeah, but i did this".
And in response to the whole "great internships at microsoft" thing, try looking at Oracle's program, helicopter tours included...
I heard that Hollywood is looking for stuntmen. never mind the waiver..
I started my CS degree shortly after the dot-com fallout going to the University of Waterloo, known for it's co-op (internship) program. Since then, I've had 5 successful co-ops, at companies like Corel, Honeywell, Environment Canada (the Canadian Environmental Service), and a university in Finland. All of them were either software development or testing, and they all paid well (enough to cover the semester's housing and tuition).
I don't have high marks, in fact, my average is in the upper 60's.
I'm not finding any shortage of work, and my university has a 97% placement rate for co-ops (all of which are paid).
Granted, my university facilitates all of the leg work in applying to and interviewing with these companies. (I don't have to go out and look for any) Althought many others do find co-ops independently without assistance from the co-op department.
But I think a big problem after the .com fallout were the people who put up this facade and were hired on, even if they didn't know a think about the job they got (Learn C++ in 24 Hours kinda folk).
.com hiring is that the majority of people who have jobs, think that only a minority of people out there know what they're actually doing.
So what I see in post
I think these days the job place and market are less forgiving to incompetence, and to that degree, don't even give people a change because of that fear.
At least that's my experience (being on the hire-er end).
Sure, your experience may be good but in my opinion, companies are not going to hire non-certified/non-degreed people
...in this current economic climate :-)
Getting a pHD in cs is a good way to become over qualified and have a harder time getting a job than you did before you had the PHD, unless you were previously devoid of skill and unable to get a job in the non-academic world and are happy pigion holeing yourself into an academic niche.
Instead I would suggest doing a degree in a different field, hopefully a complementary field and moving yourself into a niche which few other people are qualified to compete within. For example, Bioinformatics. You combine a degree in say genetics and computer science and you've opened a lot more doors than if you had just completed a masters or phd in cs.
Also Off the Main topic, but to fill in some stuff, I thought I'd mention that I took up the Navy on it's offer.
:)
It's pretty good while you're in college-- right now they pay right around $40K/year for your last two years in school--not bad, since you have absolutely nothing ROTCish or Navyish to do for those two years (I even interned at a national lab while I was getting paid by the Navy-- hooray for double dipping.
Anyway, the job I signed on for was instructor, which meant that I taught onshore, never seeing a sub but as a tourist, for 4 years. And then I was out. If you want a military career- this is not the way to go. If you hate paperwork, this is not the way to go. If you despise bueracracies, 'the man', uniforms, power trips from idiots, or senseless rules, this is not for you.
However, it is a job, it gives you in-state tuition for whatever school you're in, it delays having to choose a real career for 4 years, and they do give a reasonable paycheck. (The instructor option is only open for technical majors, however-- otherwise you can go sub, not see the sky for 3 months at a time, go crazy, but get about a $12K signing bonus.)
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
And their lies part of a solution, homework. No not that kind of homework, but the study your environment kind. What businesses fall into the necessary need category? What businesses are still going reasonably strong , or growing (healthcare?) even in this economy? (I'm interviewing with one next week). Look near AND far. Also don't forget that opportunity is were you make it. Me and another are going into business, and with both the world and technology being what they are, compared to my fathers time, possabilities are greater, that we will succeed. Remember you can make your own path, or wait for someone to make one for you.
"You can't dissect him, predict him, which of course means he's not a lunatic at all."
McDonalds needs everybody, but I think the parent means programming jobs, not just any job...
What are the prospects for me, who will be getting a masters in computer engineering in five years?
Well, to a Miamian...
Yeah, he does still smoke Cubans...it's a little agency we call INS...it's their job.
A degree is very nice, but most CS programs teach very little. I currently have an excellent internship (12$/hour, telecommute, work however many hours I want whenever, other bonuses) and I don't HAVE a degree. Am I lucky? No, I'm self-taught with experience in things companies need.
Things companies care about --
Being able to work anywhere in a hierarchy from project management to gruntwork.
Being able to learn programming languages quickly. You should already know C/C++ like the back of your hand and one powerful scripting language, however (perl, python and java are very good choices).
Experience working on a large team on large codebases.
Recommendations from professors, especially those you've worked in a lab with.
Things companies don't care about --
Your shiny new piece of paper.
Being a wizard in a variety of languages. Sure, it's nice that you can code like no one's business in scheme and java, but except for the half dozen companies who actually release products in these languages, no one cares. Most people use such things for quick hacks and prototyping.
There are other things companies do/don't care about, but those are the ones that people are most frequently unaware of. Sure, there are people in the same classes as me with higher grades, but when it comes to actually doing something I can code circles around them, and that's why I have a job and they don't.
Apparently you have to be a complete weenie, though.
The point of an intership is that you don't have experience and are learning as a student so you work there and get experience and it is ok you are learning because the resources they put into teaching you is in lieu of salary. Not to troll, but why exactly do you feel someone should pay you to be an intern? If you were good enough to be paid, why would it be an internship?
My DVD and Game Collection Tracking L
So there I sat, a wife and two kids to support, babysitting sh1thead public skool punks for no pay for a whole damn semester. And they wonder why they can't get people to teach.
Yeah, in case you didn't get the idea that it sucked.....IT SUCKED!
I soon took my EDU degree and got a job in the IT industry and got paid for my labor.
Be thankful that you can get an internship 'cause in my day we had to walk uphill both ways in a snowstorm....on our hands.
Paid internships? Bah...
Although I personally had the opportunity of two Microsoft internships, I decided to work elsewhere full-time.
At Raytheon, an aerospace defense contractor, there are plenty of high-tech positions opening all the time. Many of these opportunities are for interns. One intern I worked with was treated like a full-time employee with pay and paid time off. We were working on the same project (he had a lot of involvement) and said he really enjoyed the experience.
Although I don't really know, I imagine that other companies in the industry are offering similar programs.
I am currently a junior at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. I was lucky enough to pick up a CS internship (paid, of course) the summer after my freshmen year at a small internet company in Indianapolis. The job is really a great job, and being in the right place at the right time helped. I've been able to keep that job, so I am entering my 3rd summer there in June. I guess I was just lucky, and the job market was a lot better then. But, working hard helped me to keep that job, and I think that was more important.
You've got to suck it up and get experience somewhere. Great paying jobs aren't necessarily as good as great experience. My first job paid barely enough to live on (in Dallas) and I still say I learned more there than in the 4+ years since.
The experience pays off loads more in the long run. Trust me on this one. I make over 60k in oklahoma of all places, and with my contracts and side jobs I make over 150k combined (although i'm very lucky in my relationships).
Hard work pays off if you do what Scrooge McDuck said "Work smarter not harder!". Best lesson ever from a stupid Disney cartoon.
He seems to want to smoke every one else.
There are some programming projects that require a good basis in esoteric subjects. Those are the things you'd only really be able to learn in school.
However, the VAST majority of projects are not those projects. It's more likely than not that you'll graduate with a degree in CS and end up working in some bank's back room supporting their systems than working at Xerox PARC or Microsoft Research or Bell Labs.
Don't follow the money this way, there isn't any left in CS. If you are studying CS for the love, find something else to study as well because you probably won't end up programming the things you love.
I have been pwned because my
India?
"He was a wise man who invented beer." -- Plato
Well, I hear that Slashdot is going to be hiring a professional lamer, and I guess the AC in question is in an interview. Wish 'em the best.
...seem to be paid better than editors at Slashdot, probably because the interns are supposed to do some actual work.
Set your TIME free too!!!
---
Information wants...you to shut your pie hole.
Get involved with an Open Source project, and contribute in a big way. Learn all the skills there are to managing a project, and get something on everyone's desktop to boot.
:)
(For example, the GNOME panel only lists two people as major contributors.)
An interesting side-effect of OSS is that it offers a way to build your resume without having to get past an interview first.
Granted, I'm only a college freshman, so I don't really know anything.
What's this Submit thingy do?
I am currently sitting at my desk at Sun Microsystems Labs in Mountain View California. I'm a University of Waterloo Computer Engineering Undergraduate student.
The intern positions are tough to get at these companies, but there is certainly no lack of them! And they are certainly paid. I for one am paid obscenely well for my time here in California.
In this area in general, all the big researchg outfits have large intern programs:
- Sun (both the labs and general)
- HP
- IBM
- PARC (former Xerox lab)
- Microsoft Research
The smaller companies each will hire smaller numbers of interns... maybe only one or two each, but I find most companies that have hired interns and done well by it (and most do) believe strongly in it and will be happy to look at your resume.
Make sure, beyond anything, to get your resume into the stacks of these companies. Many of them will only bring interns in during the summer with the university students on co-op, so it helps to know when to get the resume in.
When I graduate as a R.N. in Dec 2004, I can get full-time pay & benefits for working 2 12-hr shifts on weekends. The rest of the week (M-F) I'll be figuring out who my next company's customers will be, maybe in biotech, definitely IT-related. P.S. Nursing's easy--straight A's at a little community college where most of the students just want to get out of Taco Bell/Wal-Mart. It's the real world, dude. Get used to it.
"However, it is a job, it gives you in-state tuition for whatever school you're in, it delays having to choose a real career for 4 years, and they do give a reasonable paycheck. (The instructor option is only open for technical majors, however-- otherwise you can go sub, not see the sky for 3 months at a time, go crazy, but get about a $12K signing bonus.)"
Actually from what I hear. That paper you signed going in has a clause that even if you're out. You can be reactivated, and be brought back. So unless one wants to be effectively owned for the rest of their lives, no!
People like that are no more programmers than the guys who pump gas are mechanical engineers. Programmers don't just write code, they should design code. They should resolve and reduce the complexities of the real world into an abstract form on which processes and humans can interact. Programmers should understand the beauty of abstraction, the hard realities of computation and the subtleties of resolving the two. Programmers need to more than glorified code monkeys. Unfortunately, too often, they are just that.
Of course, that's not saying that a degree in non-CS is a bad thing, far from it. But just because you know C++ syntax and some libraries doesn't make you a programmer.
EnkiduEOT
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
We are still having interns coming to work for us every semesters and summers. Just that we are asking from the local best schools (USC, UCLA and the likes) with high CS GPA. Skills like Java/J2EE, Linux/Unix (Sun) and good working knowledge of Windows (servers) products are extremely important.
Yes, the requirements are rather high but the pay is decent: freshmen start around $15, adding about one dollar for each subsequent year; grad students start around $20, additional years adding one dollar. Add in to the fact that you can very much set your own flexible work schedule, I think it worth it.
We are (F-10) in the 310/MDR area. You just have to look up your school posting more regularly. Despite the (permanent) hiring freeze, I have seen plenty of new (intern) faces recently.
Sorry if you do not fit the requirements tho. Hard times -> plenty of resumes; we get to be picky and choosy. One just have to re-position, educate himself or herself with the skills needed by the market.
Good luck.
The AI which must be programmed to form natural-language like sentences will eventually reach a point that the programmed grammar fails it.
Are you think I'm not, 'cause you're stupid which just lends credence to my point. Post on!
Amazing!
Actually from what I hear. That paper you signed going in has a clause that even if you're out. You can be reactivated, and be brought back. So unless one wants to be effectively owned for the rest of their lives, no! (For those who don't see this, it's an AC that I'm answering).
I'm actually in this group as well, and honestly, if you're in the country, and you're male, you're already owned. Remeber that Selective Service card you were supposed to fill out when you turned 18? The liklihood of that being used is actually higher than the liklihood of you getting called back after you resign your commission.
Now, I'm actually in the Active Reserves, which gives me around $400/drill weekend and I get to go on all sorts of nifty trips as well. The only thing I have to fear is if we go to war, but what, I ask you, are the odds of that happening these days?
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
How are your grades, and how respectable is your university? As always, there are both jobs and internships out there, but the dot-com crash has reduced demand to the point where you have to be a pretty decent student to get any of them.
I work for a major defense contractor and reviewed a stack of resumes today for a summer intern - I was specifically looking for an individual with hardware and software skills - (when I say hardware skills I mean prototype circuits - oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, can read a schematic, etc. NOT the skill to plug in a PCI card) interestingly enough one of the resumes was a guy working on his PhD in Electrical Engineering, I asked HR if it was a mistake that I was given this one resume - IT WASN"T !! The guy was looking for a little real world experience (I guess before finally leaving the womb of academia)
In the end I picked 4 people to have come in for one-on-one interviews. We also have an opening for a new grad - I haven't gotten those resumes yet. I posted Anonymously out of fear of my e-mail account getting Slashdotted - I will say look for jobs in Central Florida folks !
The BEST thing you can do is work your butt off if and when you get one. Selling yourself a bit short in your interview may help you here, or the companies past experience with other interns may help as well. If you are truely good at what you do, then show that to them. At big companies I would think this might be a bit complex (my digital systems instructor was fond of telling of the summer internship at IBM writing literally 5 lines of code, and spending the rest of the time playing flight simulator). ASK for assignments, get them done fast, and correct. ASK questions all the time! Don't be afraid to contribute to dev meetings! This probably works better with smaller dev groups / companies, like where i am now :)
I'm surprised that they called you. Reactor techs on nuclear subs (or nu-cu-lar, if you're Dubya) are enlisted posts, not orficer. And the above poster was correct, it's a paperwork nightmare. And nuclear engineering types on subs have the crappiest sea-shore rotation. So, if you like wearing dungarees, getting dirty, loud working conditions, and crappy pay, hey, the Navy is looking for you!!! Oh, did I mention occupational exposure to radiation?]
Is this thing on? Hello?
Example: Let's say you do significant work on something well known (eg. Linux scheduler), you can come out of school with something worthwhile to put on your resume.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I had an intern position at a local engineering firm in Austin Texas. I was in the EE dept at UT. My pay was $18.50/hour at graduation (fall 2002). I was lucky to do real work (win32 programming, not the best assignment, but better than nothing). Most of the interns did paperwork and gofer stuff.
Does anyone out there know what the job market looks like for electrical engineers? I will be graduating relatively soon with a BS in EE from a UC but i'm not convinced that will do much for me. I've been hearing the EE market is going dry as well. Is there anyone else who has had experience with this and could offer some insight in where to go? I'm pretty tired of school and i'm not looking forward to any more student loans, but i'm in this for the longterm financial gain. I have a background in computers for as long as I have been able to read and currently work as a sysadmin part time. Is there anyway to tie these two fields together in order to make a decent living?
Scott
Buying into less developers needed to do the same thing is false choice. There are huge opportunities for incorporating A/I and ever greater complexity into today's business systems. Coupled with ever richer user interfaces, and better quality systems, the market remains right for a newer, better way.
So quit lamenting that you can't get millions of dollars and endless accolades with stupid ORDER BY and GROUP BY tricks. If you are willing to think, there is plenty of room to make a killing, in fact, there is even more room now than there was before.
This is my sig.
I'm a sophmore cs student from nyc and a few summers ago stumbled onto an awesome and untapped source of jobs. A lot of my friends in cs do this too. Many research centers (often run by large universities) that don't have much to do with students have a huge need for non professional programmers. However, I'm not sure there are too many of these places outside large cities.
These places do not have the money to pay an adult programmer, but can afford to pay undergrads quite decently. For some reason, they also do not actively look for programmers. However, when I started targeting these places, almost all of them were initially interested and I actually ended up with a few offers. Research centers often require a miriad of small but often highly specified programs, and many researchers are desperate to be untied from the large and hugely expensive software suites they are forced to use when they only need one or two functions of these programs. (like Igor). Also, these are rare places where you get to work with very cool and not commonly seen equipment, meet tons of smart people, and are given the freedom to do your work however you see fit. (It is not likely your boss will understand c++) It is also very cool to have something like "developed a program to do real time memory testing via auditory and visual cues" on your resume before you even hit the mainstream job market.
there's one SIMPLE solution to finding a job as a programmer. Spend some of your time doing what you love, programming (if you don't love it, why are you getting a degree in it?). Go out and get some books on different technologies, and program something useful. If you can walk into an interview with hands-on knowledge about C++, work your way around the Visual Studio IDE, and explain how you implemented COM+, ADO, XML, .NET (insert latest buzzword technology) in a program, you're ahead of 80% of programmers who have been in the industry for years.
good luck.
Some jobs right now are being filled with interns who are desperate for work, and those jobs are being lost to the for pay workers. This is not a major problem, but I have heard of this from more than one person. As far as coming just out of college, there is little for you right now. It is tough finding people with "actual" experience, however since all the guys who used to have some form of the word "guru" in their title have now given up and gone back to mcdonalds which is where they should be, the herd is thinning and within a year or so the whole industry should be back to somewhat normal, abeit with a new "security" bent as that is the new thing for everyone.. Learn PHP/MySQL Linux, FreeBSD (install Gentoo for fun) and read the book "DNS and BIND" with a followup on BGP and routing, put some of it to practive doing small/cheap jobs for local business (helps them, helps you, everybody wins) then touch up your resume and you should be in decent shape to enter the industry at an entry level position (this all provided you don't want to go the Mickeysoft route, in that case just go and buy a cert from somebody and learn buzzwords like (dot)NET ).. A programmer who needed a break and saw this and laughed.. -back to coding now..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
I realize this sounds dismissive of the "people make mistakes" nonsense that gets passed around, but really, get with it!
I'm currently an undergrad student at University of Waterloo (CS), and I've had multiple offers for paid internships in the US/ Canada over the past 2 years, all of which were from pretty cool companies - a crapload of banks, Rogers Broadband, VoiceGenie, ExtendMedia, and currently RealNetworks. All of these companies had pretty decent compensation (> $20/hr), with added benefits of subsidized housing, transport, and shipping for the ones located in the US.
I don't think that's a pretty bad deal, considering current market conditions and, none of these were hard to get - the companies all come to recruit on campus, and I never actually had to go 'looking' for a 'good' internship.
Unlike software and IT companies, there are other industries that aren't as hard hit by the economic slump. Right now, two of the best industries to be in are the pharmacuetical and food service industries. My employer, Gordon Food Service, is ONLY looking for interns; we fill all of our entry-level positions through internships. At a recent job fair, we had far too many seniors looking for jobs and not enough sophomores and juniors looking for internships.
Now then, we're a really high-tech company with heavily automated warehouses, but I know my reaction when my prof suggested checking with a food service company. "Food service? [begin sarcasm] Boy that sounds like a thilling internship." Good thing I didn't go on first impressions.
My advise - eschew the traditional tech companies, and find out who the high-tech players are in more stable industries. Then write up your resume, take advantage of your institution's career services for interview prep, resume reviews, and alumni networking. Get an art major to help with your resume layout, then have an English major proofread. Show up on time for the interview and bring your people skills.
Scary thing is, I was an econ/poli sci major
And I was an architecture major. Didn't stop me from getting the letters.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
You make fun of George Bush for mispronouncing "nuclear", yet you misspell "officer" in the same sentence. What a faggot...
most people on slashdot work for dotcoms.. what is up with this post dotcom thing? you mean, "post a jillion dotcoms without any product and ten bazillion dollars in monopoly money" I think that is what you mean...
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Dont listen to all the FUD. There are still PLENTY of jobs available for CS grads.
.. they're all still hiring. Make sure you put down that you have your CS degree so they'll know it won't take you long to master the cash register.
Fast food, retail, restaurants
So stop fighting the system. Find a niche, find some capital (small business loans, family, rich friends), and fill it. Use your computer education to supplement a career instead of beating yourself up with rejection letters in a bone dry job market. You'll be happier if you're the boss.
Jack
See the jobs list on www.apple.com. A long time ago I was an Apple Intern, it was great: small teams of reasonably bright people.
Similar perks to the MS internships - and you don't have to serve satan.
it's called graduate school
You might want to consider doing one for free. I know it sucks, but it's great experience, looks great on your resume and will give you a good idea of the field you're getting into.
That's what I did last summer after many interviews, a lot of "we went with someone who had more experience" and one "we don't have room in our budget." I called the latter back and asked if they would take me on in an unpaid capacity. They agreed and it was one of the better decisions I've made. Not only did they end up paying me something at the end (not as much as I would have made with an hourly wage, but a decent amount) but I firmly believe that it was that experience that enabled me to land the job I have right now.
So if you don't have anything better to do with you summer (or whenever you're looking for an internship), consider doing one unpaid.
Perhaps someone should start a non-profit devoted in making useless widgets which has no useful purpose, but can demonstrate programming ability. And I propose we should call this organization, hyper-global meganet.
I was having a tough time finding internships despite a ton of interviews and a great resume, when a family friend of ours, a recruiter from IBM, suggested I try and pursue a CoOp opportunity. Now I'm up for two Co-Op's at IBM, with one offer and another in the works.
Works out fine for me because I was already a term ahead, so it really doesn't push me that far behind. Its a good opportunity, because employers aren't afraid to give you REAL work to do, because you'll be there a full 6-8 months, instead of just 3. It pays better too!
So think about it...
http://chrismetcalf.net
Check AWU about the possibilities at these facilities.
Also, check these:
Sandia
Los Alamos
Argonne
Brookhaven
Pacific Northwest
Lawrence Berkeley
Lawrence Livermore
Oak Ridge
And there are other other national labs that I did not mention.
In a presentation by a CS Professor at a local university, he stated that it is basically a bunch of hog-wash that CS jobs don't exist. His claim is that CS is a difficult field that requires experience and serious talent. It may seem like jobs don't exist now, but that is compared to when anyone who could write html could get a job paying 80 grand a year. Not so now, you have to know what you are doing and not just be an advanced computer user computers. Sure the economy is slower now, but that is true with all jobs. As a soon to be CS major, I hope what he says is true. Even so, I plan to get plenty of professional experience under my belt before I enter the work force.
SIGFAULT
Barring that, many universities hire summer interns to do research with professors. Get to know some people in the CS department and see if there are any such opportunities.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
No. There are no internships here. This is not the job market you're looking for. Move along. Move along.
I've read the BOFH. I can use Microsoft products without screaming and whining, and I even enjoy using Office. I know the greater glories of hashes and trees, and I believe that God created pointers to train the faithful. I don't write buffer overflows, because I'm intelligent enough to use safe functions or *gasp* check results through good code.
I've read the Art of Bloody Programming, damnit! I routinely cause Neo-like 'woah's in people.
And it's all for nothing, because I live in the pimple on the ass of the world. There are no jobs here, and there aren't even any internships. Not even free ones. Not even slavery-type positions, where they tie you to an AS400 and force you to write COBOL, and beat you with sticks if you don't use printer spacing charts.
Damn the Offshore Push! Damn the H1Bs!
The ad on top of Slashdot amuses me and gives me an idea. "BOSS STEALING SOFTWARE? Bust your boss. Report illegal software use." I should report a bunch of companies, then send out resumes stating that I'm a 'Software License Analyst'. The PHBs always eat up crazy titles, I hear. "Look, Mr. CEO, we're bolding stepping into the future! We've hired a Software License Analyst! He'll make sure that all our Windows licensing is kept in a little cabinet, and shoot users who try to install stuff from home!"
Or maybe I'll just go work in Walmart, and write open source software to get my compiling freak on.
+5 funny!
An example is a fraternity of some type. Those will often open doors (and you can put secret codes in your resume which will cause them to put a little more stock in your resume).
I'm actually doing a CS/Electronic Engineering double at the moment, but I'm actually thinking of switching into a pure CS degree, however the major is gaming technologies. Anyone had any experience with something like this?
you want a paid internship?! ha! I'm a CS major at RPI and I'm graduating in May.. i know about 100 CS or engineering majors also graduating this year and not one of them has a job yet. this has people divided into 2 groups; people applying to grad schools (they pay a living stipend and take care of your tuition costs) and people who are just about ready to apply at mcdonalds after 4 years of college.
and you want a paid internship?! paid short-term positions were in short supply 2 years ago. Right now it's safe to say that microsoft's offer is the only one you're going to find left in the entire country. of course, you can always join the military or an get a job with an oil company. those are the only 2 sections of our economy that bush hasn't gone out of his way to trash.
You laugh, but do the math. McDonalds doesn't tend to force you to work lots of overtime. Most CS jobs are not hourly. At actual 80 hour work weeks. What does YOUR slary work out to an hour?
Now who's laughing?
Cheers
If anything, I feel bad turning down offers of summer IT jobs and internships; I've had several offers for different positions from my current employer (Fortune 500), full-time summer work in IT at my University, as well as an offer for intership at another Fortune 500 company.
Of course, I'm halfway through a Computer Technology (similar to MIS) degree at Purdue, and I'm looking at jobs in Indiana which are off the beaten path; i.e., nothing in SillyValley, or at Cisco, etc.
Placement for my major, at Purdue, in 2001 was 93%, w/ an average starting salary of $55k.. way above the average for Indiana, and actually above the starting salary of any Purdue engineer. 2002 data isn't out yet, and it could be worse.. but I'm not particularly worried. Those guys that went to a 2-yr community college and thought they would be making 70k/yr now.. that's who I feel sorry for. If you're willing to relocate and have a degree from a decent college, you should have no trouble finding an IT job. Networking and willingness to relocate, however, is the key.
try submitting your resume in hex or binary
No, I don't think they were in the Axis of Evil (tm)
And just to point out, while many of the 'hands-on' variety of positions on the boat/ship are enlisted, there's always an officer standing EOOW (Engineering Officer of the Watch), which is the Engineer's representative for the plant much like the OOD is the Captain's representative. So, this is the position that college students are actively recruited for.
And yes, the Sea-shore rotation does absolutely suck for these types. Even worse, from what I only hear, thankfully, is that when the boat comes in from being out at sea for 3 months, everyone get to go home right away except for the nukes-- it's a multi-hour shutdown procedure, and someone has to stay and watch it when it's off as well.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
I only saw one other mention about government jobs. No one wants to work for the government because they don't think they get paid enough. I think some people are glossing over the most important aspect of it, you get paid. You have a job.
The National Security Agency is always taking interns/coops. I've applied there myself and feel confident that I will get it (I should know in about 3-4 days). Yeah, you need a security clearance. Big deal, it's not that bad. If you've kept your nose clean in your life (don't do drugs for christ's sake, and yes, marijuana counts) you will have no problem passing any of their tests (assuming you're a stable person).
The government has opportunities everywhere, you just have to give up the stigma of 'working for the man' and get on with it. Government jobs have great benefits too.
In case you're interested: here is a link to the NSA coop program. The CIA also hires people.
You will be able to have real world experience, have a valuable security clearance, and most likely a job working there when you graduate.
http://www.boeing.com/employment/college/
I will be graduating next semester, and I am a bit of dilemma on what to do next.
I have been offered a full-time job with a non-profit organization that I worked for part-time for the last two years. However I am also applying to some top-tier universities considering I have a almost perfect GPA.
What should I do? Take the job at small non-profit organization, or pursue a Masters at a good university??
TIA
Sure, this is the 300th post or something, but in case the author reads them all:
Fairchild Semiconductor is an excellant employer of interns.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
has an excellent intern program.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
I know it's hard to find corporate research these days, but at least here at IBM we still do plenty of it. Research internships/summer coop positions/etc are a bit different than the usual port-this, document that type work - there are opportunities to contribute to more cutting edge stuff. However, most big companies have their internships posted up by Jan 1 each year, so the spaces are already getting scarce by mid-March.
IBM Research still has a number of graduate and undergraduate internships posted on the site.
JS - IBM Metaverse devteam
The opinions expressed here are mine & not necessarily representative of IBM
I did one at unisys in the twin cities last year. This year, however, the department i was with is no longer doing them. Unisys may have opportunities elsewhere, though. worth checking out
I did exactly the same, except in landscaping. I could have driven to work at an internship but for what? A small amount more to cover my college expenses? It's not all about money. The tan, muscle, and comradery I built working outside with my hands was worth at least twice what I could have made doing QA for some random company. Excellent comment and story.
The company I work for has a great paid internship program. I work for an oil company. The only problem is that you will not be doing any software development. We are an IT shop where DATA is the product and our customers are the employees in the company. So you're looking at Data Warehousing, writing queries, etc. Being a CS major myself, this can be a turn off, however being employed is pretty important and nice. Anyways: From talking to some of the previous interns, Im guessing that the interns are paid between $15-$25/hr and I believe they even pay part of rent. The company I work for seeks CS majors, but only top students. For more information, look here:
http://www.aeraenergy.com/InternProgram/
Enjoy.
Browncow.
.... but when you are paying your own way through college and summer jobs are your only source of income, it is needed.
I'd love to be able to work out in the sun (well, not at home at least. Working out in the sun in Florida during the summer would suck) getting paid not-that-much and relaxing, but I can't afford that.
--- Ãther SPOON!
When the new economy turns to crap, check the old economy. IBM, for one, still hires lots of stupid kids - oops, I mean interns - every year. I should know - I was one, parlayed it into a full-time job, and now spend my time mocking those of you who thought you'd get rich in your silly dot-coms.
All you economically ignorant .edu/GPL/FSF types never realized you were committing mass economic suicide, did you? Haven't you ever heard "be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it?" Well, you wanted Free Software. You joined the Free Software Foundation. Well, the flip side of "free" software for all is that you all DON'T GET PAID. Doh!
You're a disgrace to the English language.
Hiring in academic institutions such as ours runs counter to economic cycles. I'm hiring Waterloo interns aggressively while they're cheap (~$19/hour) and of decent quality in hopes of turning them into stellar graduate students. Gotta do it quick before things turn-around and they start following the money trail. The $20k a year stipend for a graduate student still beats unemployment benefits (although not by much) ;)
Ever made a Latte?
Face it, people will never look up to IT professionals. We are just the back-office, stuck-in-a-corner weirdos, who are oblivious to the commercial landscape. Supplement your IT degree with some business majors/minors. Information Systems, Finance, and Accounting really help!
As much as it pains me to say it, getting internships and jobs can be a whole lot tougher if you are at a smaller school. That being said, you may want to check into local places for an internship. I found a job at a small community bank. Granted it wasn't in development, but at least it was experience, and yes it was paid (actually better paying than my current job). It was a small bank, so they unfortunatly did not have a position for another full time employee. My advice, take the experience wherever you can find it.
Another option might be to boost your resume by doing various kinds of work for community/charitable organizations.
Its been about a year since I graduated, finding a job was not easy, especially in this part of the country. Oh and by the way, start sending your resume to prospective employers, it took me about 700 (yes 700, the economy really sucks that much) to get my job.
http://www.opm.gov/careerintern/index.htm
http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/a13.htm
Government work. Despite all the jokes you can make about it (most of them accurate) you still get top-of-the-line equipment, decent salary, and job security.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
In particular: continue your education, but not necessarily in just CS.
If you're an undergraduate, diversify. Find time to take some challenging nontechnical classes (or just audit them -- but do the work!). Take a non-CS internship where your CS can be applied -- bioinformatics has come up several times. If you're graduating, look into related fields.
Many of the replies in this (the "continuing education") thread mention that many, if not most, technical/professional jobs from 20 years ago don't even exist today. Put another way: 20 years from now, most of today's jobs won't exist either. This has been true since the early 1900s.
The notion of a lifelong "career" no longer exists. You are not going to climb the corporate ranks to a comfortable retirement. Someday you will need to adapt, probably radically, probably more than once.
The alternative: how many times have we heard horror stories of poor engineers flipping burgers because of the big ol' nasty recession? Well, maybe I'll be one of them someday, if my company goes under. But if a person is smart enough to write code or design chips, it sure seems like they should be able to go out and land $30k as a secretary, or $35k as a high school teacher, or $45k as a landscaper, or join the Peace Corps, or get elected to a local office, or repair televisions.
Use your time at college to train your mind to handle multiple disciplines, and to excel at learning new ones. Too many engineers do the opposite, chaining their powerful intellect to a single specialty.
So, back to the topic: you could, as usual, use your internship to get a leg up on jobs after graduation. Or you could use it as a low-risk foray into a different field, in case you need to switch careers ten years down the line.
--
Dum de dum.
Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.
IBM's Extreme Blue internship is looking for 80 technical students to incubate emerging technologies and business opportunites from Stereo Cameras, to GRID Systems, to Cell processors, to Content Addressable Storage Systems, to Privacy Databases, to Autonomic Computing, this is some of the coolest work you could be doing as a CS Intern this summer. They pay for housing, competitive rates, and fly you to IBM Headquarters to present to the CEO and alot of the top Executives at IBM. Each of the 4 labs has 25 top technical and business students in the country.
Check it out at www.ibm.com/extremeblue
I work at Honeywell, Inc. at a Web-Dev type internship. It's pretty good -- the work is manageable and the atmosphere is worthwhile. The pay is pretty good, too.
I *almost* sprang for a Dot-Com a while back, but thankfully I didn't (they 'hired' me, but the employment agreement was terrible) -- I was going to get paid in worthless, worthless stock. I passed it up and stayed at places that pay me actual money.
So, back to the story at hand -- there are internships out there but it helps to know the right people and make a name for yourself first.
The company I work for (Cinergy) currently has 8 coop's in CS or IS working for them at any given time. I started working for them as a coop.
When I was first looking for a coop position in mid-2001 I got offers from SDRC, Ethicon. I know people at the school I went to who've worked in the past 2 years for GE, Honda, TI, Apple, P&G, Mead, etc.
Plenty of other companies are willing to hire coop's/interns, although typically they maintain relationships with a few universities. Incidentally, the school I went to (University of Cincinnati) has the longest running and largest coop program in the nation.
The last thing you want to do in an interview is seem arrogant. Be polite and energetic and willing to learn. Most companies don't care what you already know at this point. Be ready to explain why you want to work for that particular company.
work in a small IT dept writing dumb VB to do reporting for our accounting department. The other two programmers here have decades of experience in a variety of languages, although they've been on VB for quite a while
Did it occur to you that if they've got decades of experience, but are doing dumb VB, and doing VB for a long time, that they might not exactly be the best example of junior-vs-senior developers? I'm not saying that all VB programmers suck, or that if you have to do VB because you can't find another job that that's saying something, but if they've been doing it a while, then I'd guess they probably aren't that great. And that perhaps if all you're doing is writing dumb VB programs that you yourself are not really learning that much about what it means to be a programmer? If you learned 2% of what that means in school, and you're current job requires you to know 5%, I'm sure you're feeling really good about it... but you've barely started
As someone who's interviews and hired people right out of school, my general experience has been they are fairly worthless. Very few bachelor programs seem to prepare them for a real development job. Those that did will generally used both what they learned in school and genuine interest in programming (like, learned it on their own, or have done a lot of stuff outside of school).
As far as a good place to find Internships - good luck :) With the job market
sucking as bad as it is, the low end (the guys the above poster is working with)
are willing to work with and for whatever they can get, which is going to
squeeze out those entry level positions. I'd still be trying to hit the
big companies, as a lot of them realize that, long term, it's worth sucking up
talent if they can afford to do so. When things go the other direction,
they'll be in a MUCH better position.
I guess you could also try smaller, local places. Ask around - you've got to know someone that works for a company that has programmers, or a someone who knows a programmer. The best way to find a job, or internship, is going to be through people you know. They can vouch for you, and point you to the correct person to send your resume to (or call).
I look back at the jobs I've had over the last 10+ years, and all but 1 I found through people I know (networked). Every time I've needed one, it's not taken a long time, because people I know and have worked with in the past KNOW what I can do. It's harder if you haven't gotten a lot of professional contacts yet, or a work history, but again, you're much more likely to find something if can network.
And if you can't find a development job, but still really want to be a developer, then FIND something, in addition to whatever work you end up doing. There's a TON of stuff on sourceforge that you could try to help with, or come up with your own application!
Mainly because you managing or working on the computer systems that run the school and thus, hold your grades and financial information, is too much of a risk for the school. Only a few places even allow it and even then, in a very limited fashion. You do more gunt work then actual real work, but then again, that is usually the case of an internship at most places anyway.
I had a slightly different experience, but it was more by chance then anything else, I just happened to be the co-op who had the most knowledge on my resume dealing with computers. One of the IT departments at the company I had accepted to work for as a co-op lost 2 of their 4 main admins right as I was about to start. I didn't even interview for the position that I wound up in, they just looked through the list of co-ops who had been hired and pulled my name since I had the most things writen down on my resume (and in extra-ciricular activities I had "makes a mean hoggie"). That extra-ciricular activity was what got me the job. It made the other 2 admins laugh, got their attention, told them a little about me and my personallity (that I could joke a little and take one as well) and fit in well with them personally. It got me the job which later changed my major from electrical engineering to computer science. I honestly don't know how things would be in my life right now had I not had that one line on my resume, and to think that the Career Management Office took 20 points off on my final grade in the "co-op prepairedness" course for having that line on the resume I had to hand in for that course. It GOT me the job, it also changed my career path, and 10 months later, my major, and now 5 years later, my life. I luckily still have a job with that same company as I write this. In all this downsizing, I was actually hired full time by them, and mainly, because of one line on the resume.
It is strange how something so small can make such a big difference in life. Most of my friends are either continuing with grad school, or painfully job searching, or have given up for the time being and persuing other things in life (exploring the world). I help manage approx 100 servers and 500 clients as well as write internal software tools because I could make a mean hoggie.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
I'm questionable on whether this is on-topic, but it seems relevant. My company, a startup in NYC, is looking for a college-level intern to work with us on developing our software and building our our infrastructure. Here's some of the stuff we work with:
-Linux
-Oracle and a bit of SQL Server
-Cisco
-C, Perl, C++, Java, a bit of ASP
While we can't offer money (we're a startup, after all), here's what we can offer you:
-A letter of recommendation. (we write well).
-A chance to actually complete significant projects with assistance from the rest of us. This won't be simply making cables and fetching coffee (though there will probably be some cable making).
-The opportunity to work with an extremely talented group of individuals who have built several very large-scale systems and application infrastructures.
If you live in the NYC area and are interested, send me an email, and I'll give you more details.
Thanks much,
Matthew Zito
me@mzi.to
Most CS programs aren't intended to teach software design principles, except insofar as they're needed for you to get any work done. The focus, at least in the programs I'm familiar with, is on computer science as a science -- something akin to math applied to computers. If you want to learn how to program well, there's Software Engineering for that.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, I really love slashdot. Im fairly new and I mostly troll :) but I really appreciate everyone that gave their input about this topic. I have been unemployed for 10 months now and unlike any of you that have a CS degree..... I do not have a degree. Although I do have 4 years experience as a NetAdmin. Out of the 10 months i've been unemployed, I just realized that the first part of my unemployment adventure was spent with a mindset of reemployment in IT. I told myself that I was gonna get a job in IT reguardless. I was very naieve! I had many interviews and even a temp jobs, but I found out that I was up against hundreds at every interview.
I guess I just want to say thanks because some of the posts have really opened my eyes as what I need to do now. I'm job search exhausted! My job networking has been fair, but the numbers are truely against me.
I think im gonna start up a business focasing on residential/small business computer consulting full time. I hope it works out!
if i had a CS degree i would put some good use to it and use it the next time i ran out of toilet paper.
"oh well, at least counterstrike still loves me."
.
Yeah, the interviewer tossed me out of the building when he discovered my CS degree actually referred to 4 solid years playing CounterStrike
Well, I got the last laugh when I hacked the company's game server, and wiped the floor with that bozo. Yeah, like he's going to dare enter that gameroom now. ha!
Sorry, this is 100% wrong. The questions was in regards to internships.
/., even good luck won't help.
'Don't look for a job now' is bad BAD advice. Whether you're planning on going to grad school or right into the job market, an internship is an essential (as in must have) part of any undergraduate program. If anything, you should be looking for a job AND continuing your education.
And using grad school to kill time until the economy gets better, wow, that is colossally bad advice. First, if you think it's hard finding a job as a recent graduate, wait til you try finding a job as a recent grad school drop out. Second, any grad school program that qualifies as a parking spot until you decide to do some real work is not of the quality that will enhance your C.V. (And people in the industry (any industry) know which programs have a good rep and which don't.) Third, who says the economy is going to get better? After the masters and the PhD, then what? A post-doc so you can be a Dr. making less than starting wages in fast food?
But, as with legal and relationship, if you're getting your career advice from
" CS requires that people pay for software, and that is not the direction the economy is headed."
The rise or fall of GPL-type software shouldn't have any effect on the typical programmer/analyst.
Corporations still pay significant amounts of money to develop proprietary applications in-house to support their needs.
Whether I develop on Windows, Linux, or an IBM mainframe, I've still got to pay developers the same amount of money.
Or do people really think GPL software is targetted at vertical markets? That just isn't so.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Thank you very much! Looking for all the help I can get...
--- Ãther SPOON!
My suggestions for an internship search are:
Join your student CS, MIS, IS, or business organizations, go to their meetings, help them to recruit companies that you want to work for to visit your school, suggest to your school to have an internship fair, thats where I got my past 2 internships from.
Find out what colleges companies you are interested in working for visit and if it's not yours, take a road trip, the recruiters will be blown away that you traveled there to see them
When speaking with a recruiter don't ask the same old boring questions, find out what their interested in, what kind of crazy pranks they pulled in college, show them you're alot more than a person that can type some code
I think the company (Progressive Insurance) i worked for is still looking for CS interns for web development. They paid extremely well, got us excellant condos with maids, pool, garages, and everything for the summer, took us out, had parties at work and showed us why it was such a cool company to work for.
Also it seems like there alot more internships out there this year than last year, maybe people are looking for cheap labor. but hell, you get experience, get to try out a company that you might want to work with, and maybe end up getting a full time job there.
While the job market isn't as good as it was when we first entered college (people getting multiple offers) from my job searches I still see that there's plenty of positions out there and I'm trying to be picky. I just got a web development internship for spring quarter (yep i'm on quarters not semesters) so i could hang out at school a little bit longer. I might not even end up doing this computer thing anyway, I want to own my own food business but might do the computer thing to save up some money. Wish me luck.
Have fun in college, drink, get laid, and definately study abroad if you can.
Johnny Frat Boy can probably figure out how to use the spell checker.
I'd take an intern who's willing to learn our way of doing things over some arrogant "hardcore" CS major with poor writing, verbal and people skills.
No joke! I don't care what your GPA is. If you dress like a slob, can't convey an idea without without stuttering, and your written work looks like an IRC channel, i'll dump you for "johnny frat boy" in a second.
Welcome to the corporate world.
Someone's got to write the systems that run the place. You don't think that magic elves brought them in during the night, do you?
You're right - that would be Keebler.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Are you a minority? If you are and you are looking to intern at a fortune 500 then it's no harder to get an internship than it was at the height of the dotcoms, actually, I'll argue it's easier. Internships are great for meeting quotas because the money often comes out of a different pot than regular salaries. Of course, don't expect them to actually get any work done, they'll be too busy going to diversity meetings and having their picture taken to be placed on brochures.
Sure, this might be exagerating slightly, but quite a good deal of truth is underneath. Mod me down for honesty...
Actually, most of the nuclear techs I know (I am a submarine officer) had some college experience and more than one were graduates before entering the Navy (one of the biggest dirtbags I ever worked with was an electrician with a BA from Morehouse College -- probably the most prestigious college I ran across). One of Navy nuclear's major recruiting areas is people who drop out of college. Pretty good pay, pretty good benefits, crappy but indoor work if you've got a low-end degree.
The "cut" through Nuclear Power School, A School, and Prototype is so rigorous (due to the nuclear regulators) that if you didn't at least attempt college you probably won't make the cut. Very few smart guys these days see a six year "break" between high school and college as part of their long-range plan. Though I know one guy who went to Harvard after a full Navy nuke enlistment out of high school so they do exist.
I am going to graduate in a couple of months, and I just went through all of what you are going through now.
For the summer after freshman year, there aren't too many people who are going to be interested in you -- face it, you still probably have no experience. This is where contacts are really important: find anybody you know well enough to ask if they have any opportunities. I managed to get an internship in the IT department of my dad's company. This paid, but not very much...but it didn't matter, thats all I could get that would give me good work experience.
So, the next year I finally had something reasonable to put on my resume, so I applied for a few part-time IT jobs on campus. As a little aside, every company that uses computers at all needs IT people, so don't think you can only work for tech companies...I never have. Anyway, back to campus jobs--I got a job as a sophomore writing web applications for the business school at my university.
Our coop program starts sophomore year, so I applied to all the jobs for that, and had a bunch of interviews. This was in early 2001, possibly the worst part of the crash. When our co-op offers came in, our career services office put up a list of which companies are no longer hiring....all the ones I wanted to get. I got a couple of offers, but none I was really interested in, so I decided to forget co-op and see if I could get an internship.
As time went on, I couldn't really find an internship that I wanted, but then I started to realize that I already had a job (the web development one) where I had gained the respect and responsibility that you will never get from a summer internship. So I stuck with it, and got lots of experience doing real projects in industry, rather than getting people coffee and shredding paper.
So, I stuck with that job (and I still have it, and will until I graduate). Fast forward to senior year, and the job hunt for real jobs...ugh. There isn't much this year. However, I had real experience I could talk about...not just standard menial intern work at some huge company. And it paid off: I got a job offer from the first (and only) company that I interviewed with, because I had real projects that I was able to talk about.
So I guess the moral of the story is...don't worry about it if you don't get a Microsoft internship, or any other big tech company. Get a job where you actually can make a difference and get experience; when you interview, people care about what you did, not who you did it for. There are tons of opportunities in IT if you know how to look for them.
Finding internships is a total pain in the ass, especially if you are looking in a particular location. The best way I've found is to look-up a bunch of local companies that look interesting (using Google, Yahoo, etc.) and research a bit about them. Then, even if they don't specifically mention an intern program, send them a company-tailored cover letter and resume via e-mail. Don't send it to the HR people though because they'll just file your resume away somewhere and you will never get a response. Instead, see if you can figure out the names and e-mail addresses of some of the top people at the company, like the CEO and a couple VPs. Pick the person you think gives you the best shot at a job and send the resume and cover letter to them. If you make a good impression, that CEO or whoever will forward it down to someone below them. At that point you look really good since you just got recommended by some big-shot at the company. Even if your resume ends up on the desk of an HR person, they will consider you much more seriously.
It's not that there's no honor in going to war for your coun...::president's family's investments
Actually everyone I know...they're all in CS
Dear lord, you might want to try getting out of the CS building sometime.
At Cal State Chico you might learn a new skill or two that most CS students don't have...
HOW TO PARTY AND SOCIALIZE!
*Chico is probably the biggest party school in CA.
Actually, I want to say HELP! Help me now PLEASE! I really need a job and I need it quick! Let me explain: My wife and I bought a house while I was employed and we were doing great. Then those damn terrorists caused our economic resession to speed causing my employer to downsize the WHOLE company. We had to sell our house so It didn't get forclosed upon. We now live with the inlaws (her side) and life has been pure hell. Let me elaborate a little. My mother inlaw is one of those really strict Germans. She MAKES (yes I said MAKES) us eat German food everyday. If you've seen the show "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" you'll understand a little here. My wife is also a vegitarian only because she had to live with this person most of her life. Imagine eating bratwurst everyday! No seriously! She never gives in. Then imagine a person that believes wasting food is a SIN, next to adultry! Im not joking! So dinner time is like this: Mother Inlaw: So what would you like for dinner! Us: umm, how about some mac-n-cheese! Mother Inlaw: Ok, I make bratwurst pasta. Us: umm, we would prefer just Mac-n-cheese! Mother Inlaw: Ok, I make bratwurst pasta anyway (approx: 3 boxes....... enough for the neighborhood) (Mother inlaw's intentions: I'll just make you feel guilty for not eating any of my food, I'll also become really offended and harrass you for the rest of the night!) Us: (sinking low in our seat) No thanks! Here's where the comments come: Mother Inlaw: you know bratwurst is a German food and it's high in iron etc.... (she's know to spout off the 4 food group table at least once a day) It's a never ending battle here. Now just when we thought we had developed a routine, the most unexpected thing happens. My wifes brother that lived in WA, unexpectedly shows up with all his stuff jammed into his 2door car. He says hes over $20K in credit card debt and that he can't make it on his own any longer. His car was absolutely full of vinyl LP punk bands that he bought in WA on his credit card. One thing about my bro-inlaw is that his biggest asperation in life is to be in a punk rock band (the reason he moved to WA in the first place). So now we have 4 unemployed people living in this house and everybody is in everyone else's business. Ahrrr! The comments never seem to stop from my mother inlaw about how to raise our son, the food we eat or don't... blah blah blah... but now we can't even get any sleep cuz my brother inlaw doesn't posess a single ounce of consideration and plays his punk rock music until 12:00am, he's a nice guy but he needs to get a life or a good asskickin'! He's now taken over the only room in the house that has a TV. He's one of those guys that's into playing his music really loud (room is ajacent to our bedroom) while the lights are off, he jumps up and down in his birthday suite while playing the guitar and singing. He's never had voice lessons or even one day of guitar lessons, BTW he's 32. Sometimes I tell my wife that the line has been crossed, but we have no where to turn. I've only applied for 687 jobs here in UT and I still have hope that one day I'll get a call that turns into something good, but I await the day with hope! I guess things could be worse, but right now they seem pretty bad. I'll take an internship at the sewer treatment plant if there are any openings! Thanks for listening to me rant!
I've had 2 internships and I'm nothing special. I don't have the highest grades in my classes, I don't understand every language perfectly, but i am involved at my school, been on the executive board of 3 different organizations, member of a fraternity, know all the professors in my college on a first name basis, and certainly know how to have fun. I love technology, I loving playing with all the new technologies and I love talking to people.
My suggestions for an internship search are:
Join your student CS, MIS, IS, or business organizations, go to their meetings, help them to recruit companies that you want to work for to visit your school, suggest to your school to have an internship fair, thats where I got my past 2 internships from.
Find out what colleges companies you are interested in working for visit and if it's not yours, take a road trip, the recruiters will be blown away that you traveled there to see them
When speaking with a recruiter don't ask the same old boring questions, find out what their interested in, what kind of crazy pranks they pulled in college, show them you're alot more than a person that can type some code
I think the company (Progressive Insurance) i worked for is still looking for CS interns for web development. They paid extremely well, got us excellant condos with maids, pool, garages, and everything for the summer, took us out, had parties at work and showed us why it was such a cool company to work for.
Also it seems like there alot more internships out there this year than last year, maybe people are looking for cheap labor. but hell, you get experience, get to try out a company that you might want to work with, and maybe end up getting a full time job there.
While the job market isn't as good as it was when we first entered college (people getting multiple offers) from my job searches I still see that there's plenty of positions out there and I'm trying to be picky. I just got a web development internship for spring quarter (yep i'm on quarters not semesters) so i could hang out at school a little bit longer. I might not even end up doing this computer thing anyway, I want to own my own food business but might do the computer thing to save up some money. Wish me luck.
Have fun in college, drink, get laid, and definately study abroad if you can.
- 85% of employers surveyed in July 2001 prefer "a job candidate with great reviews from his/her internship supervisor, but who had only mediocre grades, to a candidate with outstanding grades but no experience." (source: Information Week)
- "Having an internship or co-op on your resume will earn an 8.9% larger starting salary over a new hire with no experience." (source: www.jobweb.com)
- "College graduates with less than one year of [internship] experience will have approximately three times as many jobs to choose from than college graduates without experience. College graduates with more than one year of work experience will have fifteen times more opportunities." (source: CareerBuilder Job Market Report)
So it is reasonable to expect the emergence of for-profit internship providers.(As it happens, not long ago my business plan for such a provider was circulated internally at Microsoft. I subsequently received the following e-mail from Randy Hinrichs, Manager of Microsoft Research's Learning Sciences and Technology Group:
You can see an updated, open source-friendly version of the plan here.)In the future, then, there will will be paying internships -- it's just that the interns will do the paying.
On the upside, the benefits of a really well-run, well-documented internship will outweigh the expense.
Enjoy,
Frank Ruscica :: Have Fun to Get Ready
Founder
The Opportunity Services Group
www.opportunityservices.com
Yes, an internship paid and abroad. you get the expereince of going abroad as well as technical expereince. In a major like CS the type of work will be the same wherever you go in the globe.
I am a member of IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Expereince) http://www.iaesteunitedstates.org
and its a great opportunity for students to intern abroad.
I currently work at a DoD research lab (NAVSEA) and I know that we offer pretty nice internships and co-ops. Each semester you come back, your pay increases. You also accrue vacation hours and comp time like real employees. It's very nice. You may also want to look into the PET Intern program at ARL with the DoD. They pay for your housing and travel during their internships.
Cheers.
Both pay around $20K gross for a summer. Kicks Microsoft's a$$.
Shafe
can't convey an idea without without stuttering
:)
Speaking of irony, how's about making fun of stuttering while performing the written equivalent?
But seriously, I'm a stutterer and I've had to work long and hard to become an effective communicator. I'll admit, there are stupid stutterers, but there are also some brilliant ones. Newton stutterered. Jefferson stuttered.
You probably know at least one stutterer that's in the closet; a lot of us, through practice, have assumed fairly good control of our speech and only have the occasional disfluency. Still, when someone takes a random poke at stuttering, implying that the act in itself makes you incompetent, it stings.
This isn't a flame, and I know you didn't mean to insult anyone, but I hope you keep what I've said in mind.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
you fail it, cuntlicker
Contrary to popular belief there are internships still out there. In the past two years I have interned at Compaq, Verizon, and Intel. In addition, I have been offered internships at GE and Raytheon. Now, the key is, is to be willing to travel, most of the companies I listed were glad to help setting up housing and/or help paying for it. So, don't give up, you just have to look harder. It also helps to be able to do an intership for more than just the summer. At Intel it is much easier to get an internship if you are available for 6 - 7 months.
If it ain't broke, it obviously doesn't have enough features!
Pray tell, what kind of construction job lets you "generally relax" ?
Have you worked in a construction job before?
I worked construction two summers ago because I couldn't find a summer job and I can tell you that it was the hardest thing I have ever done. Yes, I didn't work an easy job (steel construction) but I never saw anyone sitting around and relaxing, no matter what their job was.
If you are working construction, best wishes. I did it for the same reasons you mentioned, and especially for the pay. I didn't do it because it was an easy summer.
Tony
morpheus@mtxclan.org
I'm getting 15 per hour to write asp, and ther will be a performance rewiew at six moths to see if my internship becomes a real job
The trick is to be willing to work for free and not be picky about what you are doing
Crowd surfing the feral hordes gathered around dumpsters of the future?
I am a CS major at University of colorado and i work in the L3D labs as a research assistant i have been programming on a couple different projects now there. Using all sorts of different languages and they are searching for both grad students and undergrads to work with them in paid positions. Also i worked at CU for spacegrant a aerospace undergrad project that has students from many different schools colaborate and put actual satellites in orbit. I was writting ground control software there. Both were paid and great learning experiences.
Dan Mayer: my blog, essays, art, etc
Try getting an internship at Sun. The first 3 months I was interning there, they were paying me full-time salary, even though I was only working part-time. I had to bring it up to my manager quite a few times before the situation was "resolved". Of course, the resolution involved getting paychecks for $0 for 3 months, but for a brief while I was the richest intern on campus...
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
It's who you know. I can't stress enough the importance of job fairs. Sure, most of the time you'll get the people who just take your resume and file it away, never to see the light of day again. However, I think you stand a much better chance of landing an internship when you meet with recruiters face-to-face as opposed to just being reduced to a GPA on a resume. Also, if you go to a school that has engineering societies... join them! I got internships and a job right out of college through my connections with an engineering society (SHPE if anyone is curious). I was a corporate liaison and often company reps would ask me for the resumes of the society members in a certain major. If you're one of those resumes, then you'll be 1 of 20 as opposed to 1 of 1000+ applicants which gives you much better odds of being noticed. I know you might feel dirty doing the whole networking, business card, laughing at all the stupid jokes scene, but it's how you get a spot at the corporate poker table. Skill may get you the job, but connections get you the interview.
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
I kept on getting letters from the US Navy, asking me to apply for jobs as a reactor tech on nuclear subs....Scary thing is, I was an econ/poli sci major.
:-P
Well, the Bush economics and political strategy is based on the military and nukes. Sounds like a perfect match to me
Table-ized A.I.
I'd like to respond to all those commenting about CS and making money off programming. I'd say that the reason why you do CS is that you want to learn about the *science* of it, otherwise you would have attended a "become a coder in 21 days" diploma. There are many many code monkeys out there, and many of them I studied with. Remember that scarcity due to high demand means that any half-assed programmer could land a job. Now that demand outstrips supply, and, more importantly, technology advances and makes your skills obsolete, you need to show depth of understanding i.e. the science. Any skill closely affiliated to a specialized market will be highly rewarded while is it rare. As computing becomes ubiquitious and your skill is common (lots of "IT" gimps about), it is of little surprise that cursory knowledge of the field is treated as commonplace. There are at least two solutions: increase your depth of understanding (again, a better understanding of the *science*) or combine abilities from another discipline to market a niche skillset. There is also an art of programming (as a previous discussion on slashdot has highlighted) which is were you make extensive use of experience. This is what leads to the requirement of coding experience in many jobs. This is not really something that you can expect to get a lot of based on your college courses. Also don't expect your rudimentary courses to convey any extensive skillset - that's where your own endeavors come in. I know many graduates that are hopeless programmers. You need to distinguish yourself with knowledge which you can bring accross in your interview (when you manage to network your way into one). Also: very important is to show that you are a reasonably rounded person. Just being a smart geek is ofen not enough. Lastly, create an environment where software design skills are valued. This means that the expectation that software should be cheap/free will hasten the downfall of the coders' marketplace.
Given this sluggist economy, I suggest pursuing a Masters degree in Library Science. I think it compliments a Bachelors in Computer Science well.
rob
goto http://www.lanl.gov click on the jobs tab, then select from kinds of jobs. there is also links for internships, grads, undergrads, and posdocs. the pay and benefits are great and you get to hop cattle and shoot wired reporters if you want to also. I know of at least one linux sys admin / protein structure modeling job available. leave a reply below with contact info if you are interested.
In response, I was actually wondering if anybody knows of good information centers for internship programs in general? Yes I read slashdot, yes I run linux on 2/3 boxes, but alas no, I am not a programmer nor am I a CS major. The web is such a great resource for everything that it surprises me there is so little on it with regard to internship programs. Google has failed me here.
I'm not saying practice vanity, or proclaim yourself some sort of hotshot gods-gift-to-swdev, or adopt a glib or cavalier attitude. I'm saying be confident about yourself and your abilities. If you don't know something, don't doubt that you can learn it, and if you do know something, don't doubt that you can learn more about it and / or use that knowledge to learn something else. If someone doesn't believe in you, jettison that person from your circle and replace them with someone who does. The old adage about not giving others the power to cut you down definitely applies.
People who believe in themselves and their capacities are successful (however you define it) far more than not. Take this to heart, please.
Regards,
John
Falling You - beautiful
How hard it is to be a male intern in the post-Clinton era?
A friend of mine interned for a summer at Sun, working on the Solaris kernel team. It sounded like he had a good time, got paid decently, and they even arranged his accomodations. He's got a more-or-less offer from them for when he graduates, too.
Although I imagine you have to be fairly hot shit to get an offer like that. I think they only had a few interns.
Yeah I have degree and cert so and so, and not all of it came from a book. I'm a hands-on person, and in addition to the set-up at school. I also had a home set-up as complete as economics could make it.
Study concept this and that at school. Come home and work it through and through, until I felt either comfortable with it, or I went back to school with an armfull of questions.
With OSS and inexpensive hardware, one can do so much more than stare at a book.
Now I should point out that I approached CS from the nuts and bolts field, so my requirements started with breadboards and oscilloscopes, and moved in from there. I also know mechanical engineering as well.
But then the technical fields have never been a cheap field to get into. Lasers, CNC machines, hydraulics, etc, but hey that's what schools are for.
As was already noted, there's always Microsoft. And since I got the callback for the internship I don't need to worry about this anymore :)
For the love of God, please become a public education teacher. Sure, they pay for shit and you could run into a string of nightmare children. But being the nerdy type I suspect there was a teacher or two that helped you and fostered your intellect as opposed to temporary looks and/or temporary physicality. Repay those valuable teachers by helping the next generations of budding nerds.
And with the low budgets there will be consolidations of positions. I imagine you could start or improve computer classes or be the first competent IT member they've ever had.
I've also heard that, because of the lack of science related teachers, you can get significant bonuses and benefits from various government levels for your contribution.
just dont work for WTAMU. They will probably bleed you to death and then kick you to the curb...
especially the so called IT dept...
take some more math classes. At leaast up through Differential Equations and linear algebra (PDEs is good). If you have the interest, take some science or engineering courses that stress theory of "something," where implementation or experimentation would involve some element of CS (Computational fluid dynamics, heat transfer, dynamics, ...). There are a LOT of scientific computing jobs available (including interships), but preference is given to engineering/physics/math students who have even a little CS experience--I'm assuming because CS students lack the theoretical/experimental background in physical sciences. Note that there are engineering (ae/ee/me) positions that a CS student with a nice "well rounded" background could easily pick up. Don't get all put off if the job description you like calls for an ME or EE. If the described duties are even remotely compatible with your background, apply.
One thing that I have done to make some money if taking small consulting jobs in small cities. By small I mean 50,000 to 100,000 people for the whole county its in. I usally find business in these areas have trouble finding good IT solutions, and are sick of bringing in big consulting companies from large cities who charge a fortune. They don't pay a ton, but the nice thing about small cities and towns is that word gets around really quick, and you can have your fair share of jobs quickly if your rates are fair, and you do a good job. Just one thing to remember, since this is /. is to not force things on them they aren't familiar with. So, stick with windows unless Linux is truly a better option. Hard to explain here, but if you go through it once you'll understand. Learn outdated stuff, for example, there is this major corporation where I live that is dying for people who know how to run these one types of jobs on a mainframe. They pay well too. The problem is they can't find anyone to do the job. You can always try 3rd shift as well, thats usally a good way to get in the door. The posters here have left plenty of good ideas, and I think it really depends on so many factors these days to find a job.
One more stipulation - it's not just American males over 18. It's American males between 18-25. Once you turn 26, you are no longer draftable.
I can't say the company I work for is helping. We've gone from as many as 3 interns to none. That said, sales probably took a bigger beating that either development or support. We're a small company and have become smaller. I hope that next year we'll have an intern again..
Wow cool, I'm impressed. Nowadays, I don't even get that. As soon as I walk up to a corporate booth (whether it be their day on campus or the campus jobfair), all I get is, "we won't be looking at these, but if you submit your resume online..."
</SARCASM>
Actually, the idea of a class in underwater basket-weaving is a running joke in the engineering department here at CSUC.. The general opinion of the general ed. requirements is very low, and this is the strawman put up to burn in effigy, so to speak; the worse case scenario in useless classes.
The University of Alberta has an excellent internship program, with over 90% placement. You can see a list of placements for this year here. The companies offering internships to U of A students include IBM, RedHat, Electronic Arts, various municipal/provincial/federal government organizations, as well as a ton of smaller companies. I will be starting my internship this May with Statistics Canada. It is a 16 month placement, so all the credit is earned at one position. This is in contrast to the more traditional multiple 4-8 month placements seen mostly in engineering. The 16 month term allows a student to really get involved in the project. Overall, I think the U of A has an excellent program set up that will leave the graduates who choose to take part in the program ahead of the field in terms of experience.
Get off your lazy butts, stop reading and posting on slashdot and get your resume out there. I got offered 2 CS internships for this summer, both at a very handsome wage. One was at a previous employer, the other was a result of putting my resume into the hands of an HR person at a career fair at my university. I also had an interview for a third position, but it had to be cancelled when the previous one wanted to offer me a position.
The positions are out there, but you're grades had better be good, and you'd better interview well.
Philips, Philips Student Site
I got paid roughly 600EURO a month in 2001. Had a great time at Philips NatLab, soon to be the High Tech Campus. I am dutch, but I know they accept foreign students too.
Disclaimer: I don't work there anymore.
(Score:5, Not Funny)
There is no money in IT, you either do it for love or do not do it at all. When you realize this fact you will feel much better and feel eazier with your self.
As you're studying for your CS degree, look to learn things that will differentiate you as a Computer Scientist. Immerse yourself in project development, operating systems, networking, database, algorithmics, compiler theory, etc... Whatever strikes your fancy.
To survive in the market, you need knowledge and thinking skills that hacks can't pick up from some quicky book. Learn to creatively use all that math they make you go through. Present thorough, concrete, proofed solutions to your employer someday. Don't just be a programmer, be a Computer Scientist.
sure, it was handed to me on a silver platter when i was a kid, but i ran with it. eventually i dropped out of college to pursue leads i generated while at my first job.
staying in school "just to graduate" is not as valuable as the schools would have you believe. it's not THEIR ass out there trying to get a job.
i'll take experience and a track record over a degree any day.
application infrastructure, all q an a, easy
ill meet you somewhere to tell you where
I'm doing Software Engineering and had great trouble getting an internship (its actually a requirement of my degree). I ended up getting one in the defense industry (yay for wars!) where I sit in a windowless lockdown room 9-5 working in ada.
Summary: It's awfully difficult at the moment. But for some reason the university assures us that its going to get better soon.....
Seems like a lot of people have problems finding CS related jobs. However, simply because you can't find them doesn't mean the market is dead. Perhaps it depends on what skills you have, how your marketing them and where you got your degree from. I think it's time to sit down and problem-solve ( you are in CS no? ) and fix it. I assure you many people are not having as hard a time as the hype makes it out to be.
This goes along the same lines as previous posts in regards to furthering your education, but law school is a great option for many cs grads. If your GPA and LSAT scores are halfway decent many law schools love to see a CS major's application in the midst of all the PolySci and English majors. By reading slashdot alone it is easy to see how many legal issues come up in hi-tech and IT people are always happier to work with someone with a hi-tech background. You can also make loads of money!
If you have to work hard to spell without errors, then you lack the knack to program without errors. Both require good memory, concentration, and attention to detail, and should leave one with plenty of neurons left over to commit to higher-level issues like design.
Try getting an internship with the IT team of a bank. Investment or Merchant banks are best, but any will do.
I worked for an investment bank last summer, and had an excellent time. Lots of interesting and challenging computing problems, good pay as an intern, plenty of other stuff going on etc. Lots of my friends from the year below are off to banks this summer.
While there are less interns in banking because of the downturn, there are still a fair number, as banks view them as a 10 week long interview.
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
Many industries put up with vertical applications written by non-programmers that clearly show their house-of-cards design. Learn an industry as a regular non-CS operator, and then return with your combined CS and insider knowledge to revolutionize the way a business does its business.
As you go about your regular non-CS duties, you'll almost certainly see loads of opportunities for automation. This might be in manufacturing (eg. robotics) or in back-office work (eg. ERP). Just be careful not to show off your programming skills too early, or you may get pigeon-holed before you get the opportunity to see the whole picture and pick your targets.
Does your resume have anything useful on it?
I go to a school that requires an internship (or CO-OP) with another company. If you have that kind of option, that would be your sure fire bet.
Are there any places left offering good paid internships?
Yes. Microsoft. Didn't you read the article.
I work in a small group in a US govt research lab. We hire, in the summer, about as many interns as we have full time people--but that's still a small percentage of the applications sent to us. We usually get grad students doing work that almost exactly matches what we're doing.
However, we also try to hire people outside of the summer. We get few applications and tend to hire undergrads who, while they have good grades and so on, have almost no work experience, especially not in what we do. Why? That's all we get for applications.
My point is, if you're willing to accept mediocre pay ($9-$12 an hour) and the hassle of working outside of summer, there are lots of opportunities here and probably elsewhere. Many schools that don't have "traditional" CO-OP programs will still sign the right papers to allow you to participate in the govt coop program.
We get cheap labor, you get to stick a prestigious research lab on your resume. It's win-win. :)
ok, correct me if Im wrong, but an internship is a NON-PAYING job(you know, like an apprenticeship)...at least it was non-paying when I was in school 15 years ago.
when did an internship start paying?
the history of the world
... and find out why there aren't any jobs left.
I work for State Farm Insurance and I got my start here through their internship program. Although we're not hiring many full time people here right now due to industry slowdowns, an internship is a great way to get your foot in the door with a very stable company. Not exciting, but it pays the bills. :)
For summer jobs for current students: Try getting a job somewhere at your school. Or try doing something Completely Different and get a job in another field, such as possibly banking. (Even if it might be a junk job like "bank teller", that combined with a CS degree might help you get an IT job in the finance industry upon graduation.)
For those that are out: If you have a decent math or science background, many high schools are DESPERATE for math and science teachers. I know of at least a few friends who were told, "No teaching certificate required as long as you start taking the necessary classes for certification immediately." At this point they will hire people who are SEVERELY underqualified for the job - This happened at my high school. One of our former (and best) physics teachers who had a Ph. D. in statistics left (Statistics is still a hot field apparently, he was making big money consulting for pharmaceutical companies) - His replacement apparently barely knows anything about the subject matter she's teaching.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The only thing I have to fear is if we go to war, but what, I ask you, are the odds of that happening these days?
Famous last words...
No, seriously, you don't have any idea about the chances of that truly are. Things change, and nobody knows what the next few decades have in stock.
I hope you're right though, and I guess you probably are.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Yes, there are many companies still out there that want people. Thing is, they want GOOD people. As the posters before me stated, a lot of people got into CS for the "get rich quick" aspect of it. Well, that is gone now--the economy is down and the IT market is saturated with new grads.
What's gonna get you the job over the other 20 people interviewing? Passion for what you do. Enjoying it, having a desire to be better than the rest, to turn out the best possible product, and not just get a paycheck. Having real skills, having projects that you've done INDEPENDENTLY of school, just for the FUN of it. Something that says you can educate yourself, learn something new, and are very self-motivated and that what you say you know doesn't come solely from an expensive piece of paper, but you have examples and mini-projects you've done yourself. Get involved in an OpenSource project if you can't think of stuff to do on your own. It's just as good, you're showing your desire and your ability to work on a team towards a common goal.
How do I know this? Well I'm sitting behind the desk of one the largest local consulting firms in Columbus, OH. I've been here over 2 years--I was hired after just 2 months of school. I got in the door through a guy I know here, and the rest was because of the projects that I had done on my own time and could talk about during the interview to prove that I was capable of learning whatever needed to be learned and could motivate myself towards a goal. I've got a friend who is my age (goes to school in Indiana) who had a paid internship out at PeopleSoft in CA last summer. He now has offers for a returning intership at PeopleSoft this summer, and an internship in Chicago at Kraft Foods.
Prove your worth to the company. Everyone else with a CS degree took the same classes. We all know the same languages, we were all there. But how well do you apply yourself? How much of a passion do you have for it, and a passion to do it right? Do you any kind of experience, professional or personal? Those things will separate you from the crowd.
Oh, and sometimes more importantly, don't forget about non-technical skills (like written and verbal communication) and a personality...
Perhaps you could explain to us, the world, and the Slashdot audience in general the friggin point of the entire Greek fraternity system.
:-)
I mean what sets a Fraternity or Sorority apart from a regular college/university Club or Organization?
Keep in mind that I DO watch Sorority Life on MTV so I am basing much of Greek life on that.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned in this tread is trying to find some mom and pop's that want a web presence, but couldn't afford to do it back in the dotcom days. The problem is that these companies, no matter how badly they need/want a website or e-commerce, never post to monster.com or advertise the position because they are too busy with the day to day aspects of running their businesses. For instance, the customers were clamoring for a website for more than a year before they got anything up and running. And they only did it because they knew me personally and knew that I was a cs major. They just didn't have the time to shift through a pile of resumes and interview potential canidates.
If you want to gain experience fast, this is probably the best way to do it. You might only be good at programming, but in the end you'll have to learn databases, web design, and how to interact with people. Most places only know that they want to be on the internet. They don't know anything about hosting services and the like. You have to teach them about that stuff. But, that's the fun about working at a tiny shop. You are important, and the people listen to you. You also get to see exactly how a business works on a small scale, and gain a versitile skillset that will help you get jobs elsewhere. Of course, if you work at a mom and pop, they are likely to have customer's or suppliers who also need a webpage.
Unfortunatly, like i said earlier, these jobs exist mostly as dinner table disscussions. You have to create them. This can be difficult if you don't know people already, but it's not imposible. What you need to do is register yourself as a small business. All trades have trade shows. Even if you don't live in a very urban area, they are still likely to be in a civic center near you. These trade shows are surprisingly well attended and busy. In addition to the buyers and sellers, they often have a third catagory for people like catalogue printers, liquidators, and the like. Which means that you can sign up and meet with some companies face to face and see if they need anybody. Sure it might be a 1 in a 100 chance, but if 300 companies show up, it's 3 possible jobs.
Granted, it takes people skills and this is probably more for those seeking real work and not an internship, but the moral remains the same. In today's society, every business needs a programmer. Look off the beaten path and you'll have no end of interesting opportunites.
"To save the planet, I had to go to the worst spot on Earth, and that was Philadelphia." -- Sun Ra
actually - once its in the year you turn 26, you are no longer draftable. check out the selective service website - they have a pretty well laid out faq
This isn't a bad idea.
I arranged an IEEE dinner when I was in college, consisted of eating then asking engineers what to look for once we graduate.
One engineer said he was a patent lawyer. He took this 4-5 years of electrical engineering, then went 2 years of law. He became a patent lawyer and made 6 figure salaries within a few years. His reasoning was there's a high demand for patent lawyers, people to interpret what these patents mean and if they're viable.
Graduating with a highly technical degree shows you offer a different style of thinking. Having a law degree on top shows that you still offer that different style of thinking in a field where everyone thinks the same.
If you are looking to start off your experience try going to a CO-Op school rather than doing an internship. Co-Op Programs like Drexel's, and Stevens Tech usually have partnerships with many employers in the area that would love to hire smart kids for less. Make sure you compete well in the interview and employment decision phase however or you may be calling the school a No-Op School.
Back when I was in college, I used to fill out false addresses on military applications for fun. I wonder what happened with those?
rochester realy isnt the happening place for younger folks but if you realy need a job bad this is a great place to start, it will look good on a resume... and rochester has been ranked the #1 city to live in a couple times in recent years
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
If you're a Smith College student, you can get support-level funding for an unpaid internship through their Praxis: the liberal arts at work program. Every student can get at least one Praxis grant during her undergrad career, to fund that cool internship that doesn't pay anything but is a great experience.
(Smith's a women's college, and home of the first engineering undergrad program at a US women's college. If you're in high school, do consider applying. Women's college graduates get PhDs in the sciences at a much higher rate than do women who attend coed undergrad programs.)
"You'll be hard-pressed to find Microsoft citing a potential OSS threat to their desktop environment, for example. And it's been the "year of Linux on the desktop" according to various OSS luminaries for how many years now? Perhaps four."
I don't know what you're talking about. If you haven't noticed, Micro$oft now publicly acknowledges Linux as its greatest threat, and is going to great lengths to connive politicians into enacting unscrupulous laws in favour of software patents and against Free Software (using national security as some sort of "justification").
Also, I don't know about you, but, personally, I use Debian 99% of the time, and so do most of my colleagues, though I admit I am in CS and have used Unix for about 8 years.
Micro$oft knows that it is only a matter of time before Free Software commoditizes their products. As Ghandi said, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." We are now in the fighting part, but we have to watch out and fight back wherever Micro$oft tries to bribe their way into law.
I work for SNL (the lab, not the tired old comedy show). Sandia is hiring right now and looking for talanted people in many technical backgrounds. Go to www.sandia.gov and go to the employment tab. The pull down menu has student programs so click on that. It may be too late for a summer internship but there are still year round internships. They pay pretty well. Not as much as some jobs, but the cost of living out here is half, so really, you are getting more. Good luck out there.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Certs might help, plus they are pretty easy to get. pick up a CCNA book. should be able to pass the test in a week if you are out of work and can devote a straight week to study. Also some of the (don't hate me) microsoft certs aren't too bad if you are willing to put the time into it. I picked up my A+ (why not?), CCNA, MCP,& MCDBA in about 3 months. I ended up landing an internship that paid quite well, and am still there today. I know I wouldn't have got it w/o the certs.
Anybody who's "been in the field" for more than a few years need not answer unless you're a hiring manager or have some clue just how difficult it is to get a job in this market, fresh out of college (of fooc'd, as I like to call it). If you're "that guy/girl" who thinks you know how easy it is: It's very possibly not as easy as you think, because its nothing like it was 2001. I know hiring managers that open up a single position and get over a thousand responses in less than 2 weeks. This from the industry that used to scramble just to be sure they'd hired enough to accomodate their future growth plans.
Please spare me, and anyone else interested in this question, the condescending 'elbow grease and hard work' story. Truth of the matter is, if you tried to get a job in the software industry from, say, 1995 to 2000, and haven't tried to get into the industry with no experience listed on your resume, you have NO IDEA what 'elbow grease and hard work' entails anymore. Your pov is obsolete.
Sorry to be so aggressive, but I'm getting sick of the speeches and lines I've been fed by a bunch of people who simply have no clue.
Moo
If I get a good cover letter, I read it. However, we're rarely hiring. We're really small, and I don't have time to read dozens of unsolicited resumes. However, when someone whose opinion I trust recommends that I interview someone, I take the time out to do so. If there is a fit, I consider them.
I don't do anyone favors. However, if someone that I trust recommends them, I take a look. It's a screening process.
That's the way the world works. When someone I know recommends you, they put their credibility on the line. When someone emails me a resume, it means nothing.
Alex
The qualities Microsoft looks for in its interns include raw talent, passion for technology, potential and flexibility.
The same things I look for in a girlfriend!
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
When we got to prototype, one of my roommates finally figured out that living in the engineroom wasn't his idea of a good time (and he's a reactor operator). So he went over the hill for 29 days: long enough to demonstrate unreliability, but not so long that he'd really get slapped. So he loses a stripe, and he's kicked out of the program.
But as luck would have it, when he gets to his ship, they reinstate his stripe (he told them the truth: he wanted out of nuclear power), and he gets to go to a great 'C' school. Go figure.
Topside Electronics Tech: best way to go in the enlisted Navy.
Wanna see some nuke ships get theirs? Check out Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (go about halfway down -- long load due to pics).
Is this thing on? Hello?
400 a weekend??? I barely crack 200 on a MUTA-5 as an E-4 over 6 years
The best place to post is craigslist.org, but there are really slim pickings.. As a consultant, I do pretty well, but I've got friends who are in college looking for CS internships, and friends who are looking for entry-level positions, and they're mostly working as waiters (making horrible tips).. The bay area is dead right now.. It'll be better, after it gets worse and more dead weight leaves..
"And how can this be? For he is the
INTERN NEEDED
My company (Streamzap) is looking for summer interns. We're located in Hood River, OR (a.k.a. "The Gorge": the outdoor sports capital of the world). The location doesn't get any better if you are a windsurfer or snowboarder.
We're looking for programmers (C++,PHP,Windows programming experience is good). We're a small but growing startup. Flex-time and a beautiful place to live over the summer are part of the package.
We like Slashdotters--Hey, you can even buy our product on ThinkGeek.com Send resumes to hr@streamzap.com
Look forward to hearing from you!
I'm an IST major (think CS with less math and more web focus) at a major university, but I want to apply my skills to a different area altogether: radio.
I've kind of molded my education around radio, and I've taken several jobs with broadcasting companies local to my university, doing weekend air shifts and studio rebuilds and production and much more. Despite having what more than one major market GM called a "killer rèsumè," I cannot find a paid internship in the radio industry. Anywhere.
Now, if I want to go to the largest Clear Channel cluster in NYC, sure, they'd love to have me. They just won't supply me with anything to facilitate me working for them for free for 4 months, while I'm about 400 miles from home.
Be glad you all can find paid internships at all. In all honesty, I'd love to be in your shoes right now.
.... and pretends that his luck is a matter of the place where he is (US) and of how talented he is.
I will not question your limiteless talent, I am sure you invented the Internet or something like that, but I know for certain that very talented people are without work out there.
Your ascertions would make me laugh if they were not about the very sad and difficult times that people in the industry are facing.
In which town do you live? I have been working in London, NY, Hamburg, Mexico City and Singapore during the last year and the situation in all is the same: no jobs.How do I know? Because we can't hire anybody anywhere, budgetary constrains accross the board are commonplace, talking to many other people in the industry I know they are in the same situation. Your mythical City were there are always oportunities is right now not in my map, but I'll keep looking to find Shangri-la.
If you are applying for a job the piles of CVs employers receive are higer, the recruitment agencies are closing and in general you only get a chance if you are extremely experienced, qualified and lucky.
If you are hiring (which is extremely rare in most companies) you have to choose 1 amongst 100, 2 years ago you would beg people to come and work for you (not because we were griddy dot.com idiots, the market was like that and we had to deal with that).
You are the 1 amongst those one hundred that got lucky and begins to boast to the other 99 jobless people how they lack drive and why they are not waving their US flag.
You sir need a bit of humbleness, things are not that easy and you are only oversymplifying, how somebody that has been 13 years in the same company can be advicing others about how to go about getting new jobs in a depleted economy (close to be a recessive one) is absolutely beyond me and is close to be insulting to be perfectly honest (like if jobless people lacked the drive that you surely have in such generous amounts or do not love enough their blessed by God almighty country).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When I was in college I actively looked for a job that could use my skills. Internships are generally at large beaurocratic companies. I found a job as CS junior building transportation models. It was cool and applied the Econ I was also studying. The key to getting this job was convincing them that that full-time on breaks and part-time in school was going to work out. I had while I went to school anyways to feed myself.
Good luck.
By 1991, when I graduated, there were practically no opportunities for internships (for those still in school) much less entry-level positions.
And this wasn't just limited to my job, things were bad everywhere. I must have collected a stack of about 200 rejection letters before I went to work at a local photo lab.
So I guess what I'm saying is that there are a lot of us who can sympathize with what current college students/grads are going thru in this economy.
Finding your first "real" job is probably one of the most challenging things you will ever do in your life. For me the only thing harder was finding an apartment in San Francisco. Good luck.
a -1 for trolling just because I said yes? Whoever moderated this was a retard. The very first re to this story in the first place was a simple "no", indicating that there were no paid internships available; a very pessimistic outlook, I think. Yet it was rated a +5 as funny?? I simply say "yes" to indicate that there are internships out there (I just went to two college career fairs over the last 6 months hosting 500+ and 250+ companies, and I can guarantee you that YES, there are paid internships out there) and I am a Troll? What planet are you from? jeez.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard