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EA's Summer Interns Weigh In
MTV's games site has a piece looking at what it means to be a summer intern at EA. The article explores the experiences of three interns who did far more than fetching coffee. From the article: "Gwynne Olson-Wheeler ... showed some of her intern work in a cubicle that wasn't hers -- she was spending her final weeks of the summer working on a different floor, on EA's under-wraps 'Simpsons' game. Meeting with her there would give away too many secrets. So instead she zapped some graphics work she did earlier in the season for 'Sims 2 Pets' onto her iPod and plugged into a computer at a less-sensitive area. The room where she set up was darkened by dropped blinds, most of them dotted with spent ammunition from the floor's many Nerf gun battles. On the walls, signs addressed the staff of another under-wraps EA game: 'Welcome Sims 3 team.'"
Interns should be especially weary of the Network Use Policies: no plugging in devices without prior approval....she could be taking down the company with that iPod hard drive...load it up with everything you got and sell it to RockStar
i support the right to offend.
I was wondering the same thing. But then if you read a little bit into the article you can see that there is some cooperation going on with MTV and EA - therefore I would doubt that their article would highlight any bad sides of EA.
Plus, as someone else noted, interns probably wouldn't see the bad sides, therefore the article is most likely not even omitting anything.
Fewer than 60% of the tech professionals (IT, sysadmins, network engineers, and programmers) at my company have degrees in technical fields. Some have grad degrees in CS, some just bachelors' degrees, some have bachelors' in unrelated fields, and some (like me) have no degree at all. The only noticable salary distinctions are for people with VERY specific skills, and that doesn't mean "SQL". We employ PhD statisticians, and they make bank. The programmers with MAs in CS don't make more money than I do, and I'm a server app designer who spent five years in school (no degree) studying Poli. Sci.
Here's what I did: I Learned how to fix, build, work on computers as a hobby, which eventually became a serious interest. Then, I found a $15/hour job doing basic tech support for a very small, fast-growing startup. As the company grew, I gained responsibilities and eventually was the go-to technical person for a company of 30 or so. In the process, I learned a *lot* more than I knew when I'd started--specifically, I got really good at working with Linux. I got too big for my britches, and eventually moved on to a different place (startup again) where they needed someone who knew a lot of Linux. Better money, too. Fast forward a couple of jobs, and I make really good money at a really interesting job, with less than four years of real job experience.
The helpful tricks are:
1) If you sound like you know what you're talking about in an interview, you can overcome a lot of degree biases. Make sure you talk to tech people, not HR bimbos, and when they start throwing technical questions at you, hit some home runs. You'd be surprised how many people can't pull this off, even those with degrees.
2) Spend a LOT of time outside of work/school on your own projects. Build Linux/BSD boxes out of old desktops, and try to do clever things with them. Knowing how to build a web server from bare metal and a Debian CD is a big plus for an entry-level job, and the only way to learn it is to do it. Once you do have a job, make opportunities for yourself to try new things, play with interesting technologies, and do whatever it takes to expand your skillset.
3) Get your ass to a big city, where there are gazillions of jobs and lots of turnover. Move to San Franciso, Seattle, LA, Chicago, New York, etc. Hard, true, but absolutely necessary if you're going to get enough interviews to find the one guy out of ten who'll take a chance on you. Craigslist is your friend--most places, you can get a crappy job and a crappy apartment overnight, and a decent job/apartment in two weeks, tops.
4) Make friends with everybody at every job you work. Be happy, helpful, and fun to work with, and people will remember you. When they hear about interesting opportunities, they'll let you know and they'll put in a good word for you. Bosses who are leaving for other companies will call you from their new jobs and ask you to come interview.
Good luck. It can be done--this is America, after all.