Hello,
I am a 19 year old college student who is majoring in computer science. Unfortunately, I have no work experience . However I have managed to teach myself the c++ programming language(a little c# and x86 assembly as well).
I’m not too familiar with how an internship works but from what I can gather the college student on staff will be trained by a more experience programmer within the company and will be his apprentice. Game development is my specialty so more than likely the company I’ll go to will focus more on application(non-game) development but I really don’t mind since I have experience with the Win32 API. But the company might not even use c++, it might use c#--a language that I’m not too experience with.
My problem is that I don’t necessarily see myself as an advance c++ programmer and my problem solving skills aren’t exactly excellent(I could solve programming problems but not quickly), and because of this, I don’t really see myself as a useful asset to a company that’ll hire. I’m fully aware that the whole point of internship is to train the slightly-knowledgeable college pupil but I’m not too sure if I’m a great programmer or a bad programmer and I’m not too sure what standards a company uses. The only major thing I’ve managed to complete was a 3D OpenGL demo called “Khaos Factor” which I made last year using the c++ language with the OpenGL API.
In just a few minutes I’m going to e-mail the head of my computer science department asking about internships available in the area. Do you think I’m worrying a bit too much or should I just relax? The two main things I’m worried about are my lack of work experience and whether or not my intermediate c++ programming skills are good enough.
Note: My reference to “a company” refers to a fictional computer software company in my area. I haven’t even sent out the e-mail to my computer science department yet.
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Computer Science Internship
Started by Onikhaosifix, Dec 23 2005 04:36 AM
5 replies to this topic
#2
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Posted 23 December 2005 - 05:11 AM
I was 19 in college when I get my first internship. It was with IBM in Phoenix, AZ. All i knew was C++, Visual Basic, a little ASM and LOVED OpenGL and graphics programming.
But....they stuck me writing Java apps for Websphere and writing KSH scripts in Unix for 3 solid months !! I hated every second of it. They did not train me nor give me guidance.
My first day they said learn this stuff in a few days and start programming...that was it...they left me to myself expecting me to get it done.
I think its that way with alot of companies. They don't necessarily care if you know the language or how to use the tools...but they DO expect you to learn then QUICKLY.
Overall, DO NOT WORK FOR IBM !!!!!!
But....they stuck me writing Java apps for Websphere and writing KSH scripts in Unix for 3 solid months !! I hated every second of it. They did not train me nor give me guidance.
My first day they said learn this stuff in a few days and start programming...that was it...they left me to myself expecting me to get it done.
I think its that way with alot of companies. They don't necessarily care if you know the language or how to use the tools...but they DO expect you to learn then QUICKLY.
Overall, DO NOT WORK FOR IBM !!!!!!
#3
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Posted 23 December 2005 - 05:15 AM
soconne said:
I was 19 in college when I get my first internship. It was with IBM in Phoenix, AZ. All i knew was C++, Visual Basic, a little ASM and LOVED OpenGL and graphics programming.
But....they stuck me writing Java apps for Websphere and writing KSH scripts in Unix for 3 solid months !! I hated every second of it. They did not train me nor give me guidance.
My first day they said learn this stuff in a few days and start programming...that was it...they left me to myself expecting me to get it done.
I think its that way with alot of companies. They don't necessarily care if you know the language or how to use the tools...but they DO expect you to learn then QUICKLY.
Overall, DO NOT WORK FOR IBM !!!!!!
But....they stuck me writing Java apps for Websphere and writing KSH scripts in Unix for 3 solid months !! I hated every second of it. They did not train me nor give me guidance.
My first day they said learn this stuff in a few days and start programming...that was it...they left me to myself expecting me to get it done.
I think its that way with alot of companies. They don't necessarily care if you know the language or how to use the tools...but they DO expect you to learn then QUICKLY.
Overall, DO NOT WORK FOR IBM !!!!!!
Wow man, that sounds like a very horrible experience. Infact, it doesn't sound like a legitimate internship. They're supposed to train you somehow. Hopefully I won't go through something as bad as that. I really hate java and find it useless. Well that's my personal beliefs anyways.
#4
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Posted 23 December 2005 - 05:37 AM
I did my first internship with Hewlett-Packard when I was 17. They had me write a web application using ColdFusion and JavaScript. I came in not knowing much about either; they gave me a couple of books and expected me to teach myself. I had weekly meetings with my boss over user-interface and database scheme issues, but I had a lot of personal control over the design and implementation of the system. On the whole, it was a good experience (I certainly made plenty of money 
) but it wasn't, of course, graphics or game programming. Still, it was an excellent resume-builder; even if you do an internship that you don't really like, it can be useful to prove to other people that you are capable of programming in a professional context. And I did learn a lot about web application development, which I have found very useful at times later on, even though that's not my primary line of work.
No one starts out with work experience (obviously), and internships are a great way to gain some, giving you a chance to work at various places, seeing what you like and what you don't, and meet people in the industry before you have to really make a living at it, not to mention giving you experience at things like applying for a job, interviewing and resumes. Go ahead and email your comp-sci prof; your department probably has some industry contacts who could get you a job, or at least they can refer you to likely places to apply. Good luck!
) but it wasn't, of course, graphics or game programming. Still, it was an excellent resume-builder; even if you do an internship that you don't really like, it can be useful to prove to other people that you are capable of programming in a professional context. And I did learn a lot about web application development, which I have found very useful at times later on, even though that's not my primary line of work.No one starts out with work experience (obviously), and internships are a great way to gain some, giving you a chance to work at various places, seeing what you like and what you don't, and meet people in the industry before you have to really make a living at it, not to mention giving you experience at things like applying for a job, interviewing and resumes. Go ahead and email your comp-sci prof; your department probably has some industry contacts who could get you a job, or at least they can refer you to likely places to apply. Good luck!
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#5
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Posted 23 December 2005 - 05:51 AM
Reedbeta said:
I did my first internship with Hewlett-Packard when I was 17. They had me write a web application using ColdFusion and JavaScript. I came in not knowing much about either; they gave me a couple of books and expected me to teach myself. I had weekly meetings with my boss over user-interface and database scheme issues, but I had a lot of personal control over the design and implementation of the system. On the whole, it was a good experience (I certainly made plenty of money :lol:) but it wasn't, of course, graphics or game programming. Still, it was an excellent resume-builder; even if you do an internship that you don't really like, it can be useful to prove to other people that you are capable of programming in a professional context. And I did learn a lot about web application development, which I have found very useful at times later on, even though that's not my primary line of work.
No one starts out with work experience (obviously), and internships are a great way to gain some, giving you a chance to work at various places, seeing what you like and what you don't, and meet people in the industry before you have to really make a living at it, not to mention giving you experience at things like applying for a job, interviewing and resumes. Go ahead and email your comp-sci prof; your department probably has some industry contacts who could get you a job, or at least they can refer you to likely places to apply. Good luck! :)
No one starts out with work experience (obviously), and internships are a great way to gain some, giving you a chance to work at various places, seeing what you like and what you don't, and meet people in the industry before you have to really make a living at it, not to mention giving you experience at things like applying for a job, interviewing and resumes. Go ahead and email your comp-sci prof; your department probably has some industry contacts who could get you a job, or at least they can refer you to likely places to apply. Good luck! :)
I'm very good at teaching myself new things. Sounds like the perfect thing for me. I'm going to send the e-mail now.
#6
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Posted 23 December 2005 - 10:24 AM
I did my internship (this was for a bachelors in software engineering) at a music video channel studio . My responsibilities included assisting in the directing of 2 of the shows they had going on there. One was called living on the edge which was a road show where you went on the streets and challenged people to do "stuff", and if they did it, they'd get paid a fixed sum of cash. The other show was called fallout - it was about these two chicks arguing over stupid crap...
I know, nothing to do with computer science but hella fun. My (bad) advice to you is to do something outside your field. Of course once the university evaluates the internship they'll discard it because it has nothing to do with the subject, but you can always do a "proper" internship next summer.
Plus, I already had a lot of work experience doing a lot of other things. So maybe it's not such a good idea for someone with no work experience. But still though, a summer at a place like MTV or channel V is a summer well spent.
Also, you really should'nt worry about the things you're worrying about. Intership is not a problem, it's an opportunity. Imagine a circle: the circle's circumference represents your borders. Any problem inside the circle you can handle. Any problem outside the circle is new and scary and you can't reach it - it's outside your area of influence. This internship is something outside your circle. Say your circle has a radius of 5, so you as a person cover an area of 78 units - so imagine you can handle 78 different problems as a person.. If this internship problem is just one unit away from your circle's boundry, then once you push out and do it, your circles radius will become 6 units. And now your area of influence is 113. That's 35 units extra. So now you can handle 35 more problems just by handling that one problem.
Are you getting what I'm saying?
. My responsibilities included assisting in the directing of 2 of the shows they had going on there. One was called living on the edge which was a road show where you went on the streets and challenged people to do "stuff", and if they did it, they'd get paid a fixed sum of cash. The other show was called fallout - it was about these two chicks arguing over stupid crap...I know, nothing to do with computer science but hella fun. My (bad) advice to you is to do something outside your field. Of course once the university evaluates the internship they'll discard it because it has nothing to do with the subject, but you can always do a "proper" internship next summer
. Plus, I already had a lot of work experience doing a lot of other things. So maybe it's not such a good idea for someone with no work experience. But still though, a summer at a place like MTV or channel V is a summer well spent.
Also, you really should'nt worry about the things you're worrying about. Intership is not a problem, it's an opportunity. Imagine a circle: the circle's circumference represents your borders. Any problem inside the circle you can handle. Any problem outside the circle is new and scary and you can't reach it - it's outside your area of influence. This internship is something outside your circle. Say your circle has a radius of 5, so you as a person cover an area of 78 units - so imagine you can handle 78 different problems as a person.. If this internship problem is just one unit away from your circle's boundry, then once you push out and do it, your circles radius will become 6 units. And now your area of influence is 113. That's 35 units extra. So now you can handle 35 more problems just by handling that one problem.
Are you getting what I'm saying?
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