Some Tips on How to Select Your College Internship

Career guidance for under-graduates

With the Pandemic looming around our heads for almost two years now, online activities in all areas have seen a substantial rise. The college internship, which was always considered an in-person activity, has not remained an exception. Most, or almost all, internships are now work-from-home, opening more opportunities to the students. I will provide you some useful tips on selecting an appropriate internship based on your profile and needs. These tips are based on my own two+ decades’ experience of hiring interns in the IT field. Though I have generalized the guidelines, the discussions in this article would apply more to Data Science/IT/CS/CE areas.

Usually, the first question that comes to your mind is “Will I get paid?”

Paid Internships

Before trying to get an answer to the question, “Will I be paid?”, ask yourself

“What is the real motive behind taking an internship — for learning or making money?”

Now, if you say the purpose is making money, try answering these questions:

“Can I give a productive output to the hiring company?”

“Do I have the required skills?”

Mostly, the answers to the above questions will be a big “NO”. Then, why are you expecting that the company would pay you for your “learning”? After all, the company can easily afford to have regular employees or freelancers, which are readily available at a negligible cost-to-company (CTC) as compared to their regular employees. My general thinking is that all companies hire interns with the possibility of converting them into regular employees at a later point. No established organization will ever think of cheap or free labor.

Consider yourself to be happy as these days they do not charge you for giving this opportunity. A few years ago, there were many training institutions who would offer paid training with job assurance or mostly job assistance. So, those days you used to pay a hefty training fee in the hope of getting a good job.

Now, the situation could be that you still want to be paid. Again, ask yourself:

“Do I need to earn to support the family?”

Or

“Is this my pocket money?”

I have come across situations in India where candidates are required to earn some money for family support or their education, even during their under-graduation. In the US, where graduate programs (Masters) are expensive, almost every student looks for a TA (teaching assistant) or RA (research assistant). But that is a different story. Currently, I am addressing the issues of under-graduates. In the paid internships, there may not be much “learning”. Usually, in the industry we call it “donkey work” that you may be required to do on some paid internships.

Now, come to the pocket money. I strongly suggest forgoing it. Your parents would easily provide that to the limits that will ensure them you do not misuse the money.

Having resolved the paid/unpaid issue, let us now look at

“Why do I need an internship?”

Real Purpose behind Internship

The internship purpose should be to understand and learn the industry requirements. Doing an internship gives you the knowledge of industry culture, professional etiquettes, and the environment in which you would work for the rest of your life. Note that college life is very casual. A job requires you to be always attentive and on your toes all the time. Gossiping during work hours is prohibitive. In your college life, you get lots of interruptions while studying / doing lab work, because of a dominant influence of social media. In the industry work environment, during meetings and even during work hours, we expect you to put off all your social media alerts — no WhatsApp!

Now comes the learning part. Your mentor would provide you with definite guidance in your work and will explain the assignments. If you do not understand the requirement, do some Googling, try to gain the knowledge and the skills that you need to solve the assignment. It means you have to put in extra-time than what is committed to the company in your intern contract. But this is in your own interest. You are learning new skills under an expert’s guidance. Mind well, your mentor’s time is precious, respect it. Your mentor could finish the assignment in just 20% of the time that you would take to complete it. He intends to develop a potential employee.

What I want to say here is focus on learning and take advantage of the opportunity that you have got working with an esteemed mentor.

No to Concurrent Internships

Many students think that if they have more internships on their resumes, they stand a better chance of getting a job after their graduation. This is not quite true. Focus on one kind of industry domain — let this be web designing, full-stack developer or AI/ML (Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning) or any other single field of your liking. You do not want to fall into the category “Jack of all / Master of none”.

You may take multiple internships spread over multiple semesters focussing only on developing one kind of skill. If you are one of those exceptionally bright students, you may gain multiple skills during your college days by signing up for multiple internships — it will help in having a choice in your college placements.

Importantly, never sign up for overlapping internships just to add them on your resume. The recruiter (HR — Human Resources) will usually reject such resumes.

Selecting Company

Almost every candidate aspires to get an internship in a Big name like Amazon, Google, TCS, Infosys. Getting into those companies is difficult. Unless you have exceptional and consistent grades throughout your college years, they will not consider you. If you are one of those select ones who gets an entry into those companies, your future is decided.

For others, I would advise you to join a startup. Many learning opportunities lie in those companies.

Mentor Choice?

This is a tricky question. But, I strongly suggest asking who is going to be your mentor before accepting an internship. Do Googling on his name and look up his LinkedIn profile. Working under a person with a high industry profile helps. His knowledge would help in getting you exposure to the current and emerging technologies.

If you are one of those types who wants to pursue higher studies, especially Ph.D., do not think of doing an internship in the industry. Rather, look for a good research organization. The reference letter from a mentor working for such research organizations will take you a way ahead of the competition in getting an admission into a US university of your choice. Not only this, it stands a good chance of getting you a TA / RA. If you can publish a research paper or minimally a conference presentation, it would surely add to your chances of getting an admission to better schools.

I remember, many years ago, I published an article along with my four interns in a then most popular Java Magazine (Java Developers Journal). The article appeared as the Main article in the journal. They published the journal at time coinciding with Sun’s Java conference, a widely attended event. This brought three of those interns to get an admission in the US, with two of them getting TA. So, the publications do play a vital role in such cases.

Many years ago, I advised my niece to take up an internship in TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India) under the guidance of a recognized research scientist. The work she did under his guidance helped her in seeking an easy admission to a US university.

I possess both industry and academic skills, doing consulting for top-notched IT companies and teaching in Universities of repute. I have many past students who have reached the positions of Vice President in companies like Oracle, Google, Microsoft, IBM and others. I feel proud of playing a minor role in their career building during their college days. They reached their positions on their own merits. Probably I helped them a little to get an entry into those organizations.

What I want to say here is that selecting an excellent mentor is an important part of your internship selection.

Finally, let me say something about the gap in the industry and academics.

The Gap in Academics and Industry

Many companies in India offer induction programs for new recruits. Such programs run for up to 6 months, training candidates even in basic subjects such as C/C++/Java. So what did they teach you in the colleges? There is a wide gap in the industry requirements and what or how it is taught in colleges? A few years ago, or probably even today, there were many institutions that offer a 3-year IT training course that runs concurrently with your under-graduate three years (Bachelors) program. I never heard of this happening in the US. There, a student is allowed to take courses from multiple departments and each course meets the industry requirements, as most of these autonomous schools receive lots of industry funding.

What I want to stress out here is that I consider an internship as your learning opportunity that meets industry requirements.

Concluding Remarks

Said all this, I wish you good luck in finding an appropriate company for your internship. If you feel you need some personal guidance, you are most welcome to connect to me on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn: Poornachandra Sarang, Ph.D.

Credits

Pooja Gramopadhye — Copy editing