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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.'"
This article doesn't seem to highlight the same soul-crushing work ethic that other articles on EA has in the past.
What gives? Is this an HR ploy to keep resumes coming in from fresh college blood?
Sounds suspiciously like a Clinton/Monica like internship.
EA's Summer Interns Weigh In ...at 300 pounds!
Well, that's what I expected. It's not like they ever let you out for exercise, unless you consider the giant corporate hamster wheels.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
How about also teaching civics and Constitutional law to politicians (who spy on their citizens), ethics to CEOs (hello, HP?), and so on?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
This is the true story
...start getting real
Of 137 students
Picked to live in some cubicles for a summer
And have their lives... what lives?
To find out what happens
When people stop being polite
And...
(the four who survived our reeducation facilities)
Game... blouses.
Since when was judging candidates on their qualifications a problem? When I'm hiring I look for evidence of a candidate's skills and capabilities. If they have no work experience (they're interns after all) then all I have to go on is their school work. Which school they're at says a lot about the quality of the education they will be getting.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Well, there's really two points to a programming/engineering internship:
1) Cheap labor. For basic programming jobs, an intern isn't necessarily any worse than a full-timer, but is a heck of a lot cheaper.
2) Extended interview. You get to know a potential future employee better than you ever could in an interview, and get them up to speed on what you do should you later hire them. For this reason, it's an especially bad idea to have interns fetching coffee or they won't be interested in coming back full time.
The enemies of Democracy are
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.
"We swear we're not teh evil anymore! Please come work here! ... Everyone floats down here woo ha ha ha!"
stuff |
I interned with EA Tiburon this past summer, I worked as a Software Engineer on the Tiger Woods PGA Tour team for the PS3 and Xbox360.
First off, noone was working insane hours. It's a misconception that people have that you get worked to death. I didn't see anyone on the team working like that and I sure as hell didn't work like that.
Yes, they liked me there, before some smartass posts "Well, you didn't work late because your code sucked."
I was the build engineer for Tiger Woods PGA Tour and I also implemented some features into Tiger Woods 2007 (I haven't seen the credits yet, but they told me I'd be in them).
Next up, one of the interns was from Digipen (and he can drink as fast as I can). There's no discrimination against people from trade schools. Hell, the guy who replaced me as Build Engineer when I left graduated from Full Sail. However, in general, the people coming out of those trade schools have no business competing with people who have degrees from major universities (when asked what schools to go to, Will Wright responded GeorgiaTech, USC, and Carnegie Melon on multiple occasions). I, personally, am from GeorgiaTech and will be graduating in the Spring with a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and a Bachelors in Computer Science. This isn't to say those schools aren't valuable, but you get what you put into them: they graduate everyone. Again, this is a generalization, this isn't always the case.
I loved working at EA and I'm definitely staying in the game industry. Despite the fact that all of the armchair engineers on various forums (you know who you are) are constantly ragging on <i>something</i>, it's still fun. I still love the fact that everyone who said "oh you're going to work for the slave drivers at EA" when I was leaving have eyes glazed over after hearing the great work experience it actually was.
Chris Burke is right, when he posted the two main reasons for an engineer internship as being cheap labor and an extended interview. This is the case everywhere. However, that doesn't mean they overwork you or treat you like crap. I was a part of the team when I was there, or at least felt that way, and loved going to work every morning (ok, sorta true, I hate waking up in the morning). The hours were flexible, I went to work in a tshirt, shorts, and sandals on many occasions, and I had a PS3 and an Xbox 360 at my desk. How awesome is that?
Flame away.
If you always think like an expert, you'll always be a beginner.