Internships for Talented High School Students?

xeon4life asks: "I'm an Austin, Texas area high school senior with a slight dilemma: I need a job, I don't want what's offered at my age, and internships are not quite open for kids like me. I've recently been reading essays by Paul Graham about creating your own startup and have been motivated enough to convince two of my good friends to go into business with me later, during college. Thus, an internship at this point would be the ideal solution for me now, but nobody is willing to take me as an intern because I'm still in high school. What am I to do?" "People have suggested that I just do what every other good American high school citizen does and take a mediocre job. The problem is, I feel it would be a waste of my talents right now to be stuck folding shirts at the local mall or flipping cheeseburgers when I could be helping develop a cutting-edge game, the next-generation compiler, or even the Linux kernel as an intern. I have a higher than most college students' understanding of concepts, and some real programming experience in languages like assembly and C/C++, but that isn't going to amount to anything if I can never find an interviewer who will at least listen to me. I'd appreciate any input the Slashdot readership can give me."

Comments

entroll in a community college

[Triumph The Insult C]

almost all of the community colleges in my area (maricopa county, az) allow high school students (at least seniors) to sign up and take classes. i was taking classes through one as a high school junior. see if you can do that. boom, now you're in college

as for joel's "advice" ... imo, his 'success' has gone to his head and he now lives in a fantasy world. before i started working with computers, i painted houses and washed cars. both of those jobs taught me valuable life and career lessons a computer-related internship never would. plus, jobs like that are fun. you're still young ... have some fun before it's too late

Re:and to quote...

[MarcQuadra]

I disagree. I went to a high school [www.metcenter.org] that helped place me into a tech internship. You have to 'pound the pavement' and find a company that will take you on for free or cheap. Once you get past the front door you'll look quite appealing to a middle-manager and HR.

I had two internships in high school, one was working for a local tech outfit in the repair depot, which let me network and get the A+ and Apple certifications, and the other was assisting a local grade school get connected to the internet, which let me learn how to integrate technology into education and get a grasp on networking and server technology.

If it weren't fr those internships I'd probably be flipping burgers today, but instead I work at a top-notch boarding academy and run a freelance 'managed computing' business.

The company that ran the school I went to is active in Austin, it's called the Big Picture Company [www.bigpicture.org], they offer services to set up metcenter-like schools nationwide. find this company and ask someone for advice, they're VERY friendly.