Leads on last minute research or internships for a rising college sophomore?

Parents Forum
21

It does not have to be for transfer credit. Could just be an addition to his resume. It is just that at this late moment, acquiring comp sci skills would probably be a better use of his time than a grunt job unrelated to hisfuture career, unless he needs to earn money.

One of my kids did a year of organic over the summer btwn freshman and soph because they couldnt get a clinical job. Wasnt required for their major or minor, but was a med prereq. Another did intensive foreign lang study, didnt need the credits. Just putting it out there as a potentially useful summer option, if no relevant internship found.

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22

Agree.

There are dozens of remote study certificate programs available that could enhance your son’s resume for his field of interest.

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23

Thanks. Any suggestions for great online summer certificate programs? Presumably CS, physics or math related? He hasn’t done any CS in college but did get a 5 (self-studied) on the AP Comp Sci A in HS and take the school’s post-AP Adv Algorithms and Data Structure course (which is why he did the self-study AP to qualify for since he didn’t have room for the prior courses on his schedule).

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I was an engineering manager for a large aerospace company. We would only offer internships to upcoming seniors and above. Before that, the student just didn’t have the skills we were looking for. We also would use the internships as basically 3 month interviews for permanent employment.

One other fact about internships at the big companies. The grade point requirement for an internship was higher than for permanent employment. It was a matter of the number of internships we offered and the number of applicants we got.

In college, I got involved in undergraduate research during the school year. That led directly to summer work at the college doing that same research.

As far as getting experience for a permanent job once he graduates, an internship in the upper division for one year is good enough experience. You want to be able to prove that you know what it is like to be responsible and show up for work and be able to work the whole day. At this point, any kind of employment is good.

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25

Great to know!
Thanks for the lead information!