Internships - Be There for Students!

I had an interesting conversation with my youngest son yesterday as he begins his search to obtain an internship next summer. He told me that last year as a freshman that he had gone to several on-campus events with employers to talk about internships. He recognized as a freshman he probably wouldn’t qualify, but wanted to establish connections with potential companies and learn what he needed to do to prepare for internships. He approached each companies recruiting team with the same story – talking about how many computer classes he had taken in high school, what types of apps he had already created in and out of class, how he had already taught himself the basics of machine learning and the programs he had created utilizing machine learning. At the end of each conversation he asked a simple question – what else could he do to be attractive candidate to be offered an opportunity to intern with the company in question.

The response he got from most companies that were attending the job fairs was what floored me, “If you had other internship positions prior to applying with us, that would make you stand out.”

Huh, what?

 Let’s discuss what the purpose of an internship program is as defined by the Oxford dictionary:

• The position of a student or trainee who works in an organization, sometimes without pay, in order to gain work experience or satisfy requirements for a qualification

Nobody, and I mean nobody, should be telling a student that to stand out to get an internship that they need to already have had an internship position. I continue to be amazed at the false barriers we place in front of students before we give them a chance in the business workplace. Specifically, as it relates to my particular profession – software development – there is a shortage of skilled workers that is only getting worse as the baby boomers begin to retire. We need to be encouraging students to get into this profession and knock down the mindset that creates statements like the above about needing prior internship experience or that they need a four year degree.

I tell students that I meet with that our internship program is to align with what they are learning in the classroom. To give them practical hands on experience with concepts that they are learning and to expose them to what being a developer means so that they are prepared when they enter the job market as a graduate. Here’s where they will learn things that they don’t tell you in school (list below is not meant to be an exhaustive list of what they will do):

• Design Documentation
• Tagging and Merging Code
• Unit and Integration Testing
• Implementation Planning and Execution
• Implementation Validation
• Defect Management

I’m happy my son has chosen to obtain a four year degree because of the specific type of software development job that he wants to get when he graduates. But, I’m all for students getting the necessary experience in high school and then entering the workforce as an entry level programmer. Alternately, there are great 2 year programs offering Associate Degrees thru our Community Colleges that get students work ready to enter the job market and be great developers.

I have offered internships to high school, community college and traditional four year college students. They, for the most part, have all been able to join my teams and be effective developers.

Don’t ask students to already have completed internships, ask them about what drives them, what have they already done, what are they doing outside of the classroom that proves that they have the passion to develop great software? What experiences have they had working on a team project – either in school or with friends? What experience do they have in resolving conflicts within a team project? What kind of a student have they been – where have they gone above and beyond what was expected in assignments? What type of relationships do they have with their professors?

Stop finding a way to say no and find a way to give hungry students opportunities.

If you'd like more information on my background: LinkedIn Profile