Busy with S24 - same grueling college application and decision times. We are blessed with the decisions so far. S22 is doing an internship too.
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Hi all! 
Lovely reading everyone’s updates after a bit of an absence from CC.
My D22 is doing fine in her 2nd year. Has a solid friendship group this year, formed from girls she met during their first year. Her STEM program offers an elective this year, from more STEM to a business course to foreign languages and she opted for a foreign language as a way to relax. She’s also writing for a student-run newspaper and seems to be enjoying exercising a different part of her brain. Foul weather (including flooding) has meant very little rowing this year. She’s still stressed academically but seems to be taking it more in stride. Overall, pretty happy with her college experience.
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Our D22 has changed away from STEM. Not a great surprise to us! She had a challenging Fall23, after a good freshman year, and has made several positive changes. So, no internship this summer, but a repeat of what she did last year with maybe an addition of a two week program focused on her new major (if she’s lucky). She’s still doing music as well, as a major, in groups, and volunteering with some local public school kids for an hour a week. If she had more time, she would do more!
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Great to hear the updates!
Our D22 continues to well in her classes. She’s still putting in time with a research team.
She has landed a summer internship for 2024. This time in Pittsburgh. We’ve lined up a dorm room for her on the CMU campus.
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How are everyone’s kids finding internships? My D (business) has applied to many through linkedin postings. Unfortunately, she hasn’t received any positive responses.
It seems no companies are actively recruiting on campus any more. It’s just randomly applying to online postings.
Has that been the experience with your kids? Would really appreciate some suggestions on what worked for your kids in landing internships.
S22 found his internship through Linkedin, although the company’s he is going to join does recruit at his college’s career fair. He is in engineering, which may have helped.
He said many of his engineering friends found internships and coops through the fall and spring career fairs. The career fair employers had positions in the area where the college is, whereas he wanted to be near home for his internship. So his search was longer than those of his friends.
I have a family member who was in the same boat with no big career fair on her school’s campus. She leaned heavily into the alumni network of her school and messaged a ton of grads in her target industry. She just landed a perfect internship last week but it took lots and lots of legwork. She’s been at it since last Fall.
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Thank you for the suggestions. I am probably dating myself. But back in the early 2000s, I remember recruiting very differently. We did resume drops into these slots for all the companies recruiting at our career centers. If chosen for an interview, you get an email.
Now it’s just sending random resumes to company websites. She says the career fairs aren’t that helpful. She’s getting discouraged since there’s no feedback, positive or not.
I am encouraging her to keep trying. Hoping for an opportunity soon.
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S22 is doing well. He is liking his engineering classes and doing well in them. He was initiated into the honors engineering society (Tau Beta Pi), and I hope he can leverage this in finding research opportunities or an internship. He is very close to his high school friend group, which he has not been able to replicate in college, but he has met a good group of friends. It is so nice to see our children become mature, young adults.
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The challenge is that the number of applications to internship opportunities has grown significantly over the past decades. 20+ years ago we only applied to jobs we heard of through campus fairs and the career center, and occasionally through a friend/family member. Now it’s very easy to find jobs on the Internet and shotgun very broadly. Unfortunately in these scenarios your resume can get lost in the pile.
So here are my suggestions:
- almost every firm uses an automated intake system (ATS) that parses resumes. So first, have your daughter make sure her resume is ATS-friendly. I’ve seen fancy resumes that don’t parse well and the ATS has barely picked up half the information.
- second, make sure the resume has key words from the job posting. For example, if a CS role is asking for Java programming knowledge, make sure the word “Java” is explicitly in the resume.
- request family, friends, or alums to refer her resume to their employer. Referrals help a lot, at least in getting the resume read by a real person (HR/hiring manager).
Best wishes!
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Very true that the number of applications to everything has grown significantly over the past decades.
I will definitely ask her to make sure her resume is ATS friendly.
Thank you!
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It’s another round of summer REU applications for S22. Last year, he got extremely lucky and was accepted into 2 REUs and 2 NSF sponsored summer schools. He really enjoyed the REU he attended. It resulted in a a preprint and a bunch of presentations. There is another preprint in progress for a research project he has been working on since last January.
He has been enjoying his grad level classes and being a recitation leader for honors MVC, though he isn’t a big fan of grading 
He’s also proofreading and providing exercise solutions for a new textbook (a year long paid job). The next task is to plan his thesis for his junior year so he could include it in his grad school application.
These days he comes home with his girlfriend, a new stage in the parenting journey for us. Luckily, we really like her and she gets him, but his older brother (S20) isn’t particularly thrilled about it
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My D is an accounting major, which seems to be sought after. She got an internship with a Big 4 firm which does not recruit from her campus. I believe she applied directly to them. After her freshman year she got an internship with a state agency which gave her valuable experience with financial statements that helped her land the next two internships. She is very motivated so I think that frankly the internships are the result of her efforts and not her school.
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Nice to see the updates on this thread. From what I hear from S22, internships have gotten much harder for sophomores unlike the 2020-2022 era where firms were filling their talent pipelines as early and as much as possible.
Luckily, S22 landed an internship last summer, and this year much to my surprise has chosen to research intern at a national lab this upcoming summer. He seems to have grad school in mind but every semester has brought some change in perspective, so who knows.
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Great tips.
Since you are in the know, how much has CS hiring slowed down for internships, particularly for sophomores. Looks like companies aren’t focused on the talent pipeline 2 years from now given what they are dealing with in the present.
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D22 is in the same boat as many of you, trying to find an internship for summer. She has applied to many but so far not heard back. She had an internship during fall semester, plus an on-campus job and a max load of classes. I was exhausted just listening to her.
She is also planning study abroad for spring 2025. Currently though she is partying, it is Mardi Gras in Nola and it is customary to party until late Tuesday night and then be in the classroom bright and early Wednesday morning in true play hard work hard fashion
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It is significantly down compared to years past. With all the layoffs and focus on cost cutting, internship programs have shrunk a lot. Most companies I know of personally that used to take on sophomores (rising juniors) as interns are only taking on juniors this summer. It’s hard to justify the extra cost, not only in terms of actual dollars, but also in increased workload for teams that have fewer members now. At least with rising seniors you can make full-time offers at the end of the internship, so it helps the firm. The investment return on rising juniors is far more uncertain.
I recommend looking for opportunities locally and through your network. Or do research or a retail job this summer. These can bolster your resume as well.
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Thank you. That’s kinda what I figured as well. Luckily S22 had two internship offers - one from a wall street bank and another from a national lab for an ML research project. He is going to the national lab but it looks like more than half of his sophomore peers are still looking and its a far cry from a typical year.
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While I think that, in general, CS hiring has slowed, applicants with real experience in AI/ML remain in high demand. Our S gets contacted weekly by headhunters on LinkedIn. More interestingly, the Talent arms of VC firms are increasingly reaching out to help get their clients the expertise they need.
In an environment where internships may be tight (especially for Freshmen, and Sophomores) , I would recommend AI/ML students to take the AI/ML summer research route to gain more real experience that can later be leveraged as a Junior or Senior year student. My $0.02
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Stumbled upon this thread today and glad to see its still active!
My sophomore got an internship offer today, after 100+ applications since September. But it’s a good one and in our city, so he is happy. His plan was to work retail this summer if nothing else works out.
But this year has not been easy for any of his friends in regards to finding internships, all engg and CS majors. Good luck to all our kiddos!
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