I am interested in hearing how folk’s kid’s summer internships went. What year of college are they in? Paid or unpaid? Worthwhile for the career development?
My student is a rising senior. This was an unpaid internship in her career field which is a nonprofit field. Unpaid is typical for this field. Previous internships had been1 paid (ruled out that career) and 1 unpaid. This summer’s experience was amazing in terms of the responsibilities she took on as well as the amount of thought they put into her development. There were sessions on creating a strong resume, lectures, weekly homework and readings, recommended text book, and active mentoring. Housing was provided with heat and wifi. Some other interns had part time jobs but she didn’t. We were out possibly $75 a week (12 weeks) for food and I am estimating about $500 of airfare. There was not much going on in her town so no entertainment costs. She found the library and got a card.
She is even more committed to this field and has a good sense of her path forwards. Her skills took a giant step forwards.
How about your student? Good experience this summer?
edited to add: I had a long conversation yesterday with someone at a nonprofit about how IMHO unpaid internships stack the deck against students who are low income because there are so many costs associated with taking the unpaid internship -transportation, housing, food, specialized clothing etc. . That particular non profit requires the student to receive college credit for it which is another expense. That conversation sparked my wondering if CC students had good experiences and career development.
My daughter had a paid summer research internship at a different university, and she said it was “fantastic.” She learned new things every day, and it helped give her more clarity as to what type of PhD degree she wants to pursue later. The internship ended with her giving a presentation on her research to the department at the university. The faculty and graduate students there seemed amazed that she was still an undergraduate, and they praised her work extensively. That has boosted her confidence as well. She had conducted research in three other labs, so this was not her first work experience, but she was able to use the supercomputer more this summer and realizes she wants to focus on research that uses high performance computing. The people she met were also nice, and she said she was sad to leave them.
Rising senior in chemical engineering. Spent the summer in the continuous improvement department for a food manufacturing company, doing lots of data analysis and (since it was my first internship) lots of learning about the manufacturing field as a whole. I never realized how much goes into making each bite you take of something that’s been mass-produced.
As an engineering internship, it was paid and included subsidized rent on an apartment in the big city where the plant was located. I was able to work on some real projects, which felt overwhelming at times but was a learning experience in the end. Everyone was very nice and I never dreaded coming to work even when I was stressed about my projects.
Fun fact: some engineering students make fun of industrial engineering, but the job I was doing would have been an even better fit for an IE, and there were people from both disciplines in the department. So…don’t listen to the trash-talk, everyone ends up in similar places anyway!
D2 just did her 3rd internship. This one was unpaid because she was working for a state agency. It was INCREDIBLY expensive because we had to find housing for only 3 months in Austin, AND continue paying on her apartment in her law school town. Austin housing is very pricey, and they really stick it to you when you need a short term lease. But she loved it, learned a lot, did very well, and got great recs. She has already interviewed for next summer internships and has offers in for over 10K per month for next summer. One of them, if she accepts, will be in our own city, so she could live at home and save her earnings. DH is very glad about this-he viewed this year’s unpaid internship as an investment in her future and had already told her he expected her to impress her Austin bosses so she could get great recs in order to land a paid clerkship for summer 2018. I guess it turned out to be worth it.
Good for your daughter, @Nrdsb4. Not too many rising 2Ls get paid law clerkship positions after first year of law school, so yes, an unpaid position is a great investment if done right. And that paid clerkship might turn into a full time job (the salary paid is an indicator of what a new associate would get, from 70-100% I was told).
My daughter did an NSF REU at a different university than the one she attends. It was in a major city so very convenient as far as getting around, finding food, entertainment. It was 10 weeks long, paid, and housing was included. It was in a sub-field of her major that she is interested in pursuing in graduate school. There were 9 other students in the program from all over the country who she enjoyed meeting. Each was assigned to a different lab. She worked under a female PI but mostly with grad students. She learned a lot about research. The program included some information about applying to graduate school at that particular institution, graduate school in general, a mini-conference with presenters who research various aspects of the field, participation in a quarterly meeting for the center. The students presented their research during the last two days, first day oral/PowerPoint, second day poster presentations. She submitted an abstract to the undergraduate division at a national conference and just found out she was accepted. They are funding her trip to the conference in October. It was a tremendous learning experience.
As rising JR, S did a paid summer job at our instate U ( even tho he attended college at OOS private U. He was an EE student and did research with a plant biology prof. The next summer he did paid internship at NASA. By February of SR year he had 3 engineering job offers. No housing or subsidy for housing was ever included for summer jobs.
Son who is rising junior did paid summer internship for a well known travel website in Boston. He did back end work on they company’s website, mostly software and data analytics. He said he enjoyed the work and the supervisor gave him an unsolicited reference and invited him back for next summer. It was son’s first summer living on his own, as he had to arrange his own living accommodations in Boston and move in and out of his rental space.
My S is a rising sophomore. Did 2 internships during a gap year between high school and college. One paid, one unpaid. Neither provided any kind of living/housing help. One cost us a couple hundred dollars a month in public transportation and had a nearly 2 hour commute each way. That said, he loved every minute of it. This past summer (summer after freshman year) he worked at a start up in a city. Paid internship. Loved it. Exactly what he wants to do when he graduates. No housing or living stipend, or help finding housing, but he sublet a bedroom in an apartment walking distance from his office. It was a great experience all around.
My D is a rising sophomore. Did an internship at a big corporate company in a city. Paid well. Including a housing stipend (not quite enough to completely cover housing but pretty close) and a travel stipend but no help finding housing. The big issue for her was that although she had the job offer in November, she wasn’t told where she would be working until roughly 6-7 weeks before her start date ( there were options in 5 different states). During the summer this company had lectures on all sorts of topics and she took advantage of everything offered. There was a mentor program as well. The work was exciting and hard part of the time and part of the time it was more about learning how she fits into the corporate landscape and how to work with people then actual engineering work. She learned a great deal (technical and otherwise) and really enjoyed her experience.
How hard was it to find housing? Both my kids worked in the same city but of course didn’t live together. Luckily, they did apartment hunt together. That made me feel better about them touring stranger’s houses. That was probably the most stressful part of the whole summer.
D14 is a rising college senior and this summer had a paid internship with a structural engineering firm. They do a lot of forensic work–investigating and devising solutions for building failures. She was able to stay for free with a friend and bike to work, which was unexpected and fantastic–last year’s internship housing situation was a bit of a debacle! The experience was excellent. She’s done two other paid internships in architectural engineering before she changed her focus and this was her favorite. She really liked the variety of work and the company culture. She learned things she hadn’t covered yet in her classes. She did a lot of site visits and a lot of research. I’ll add that summer after her first year of college she did an unpaid internship with a nonprofit doing construction-based work in a developing country. She had volunteered with this organization before and had hoped/planned to do this internship for a long time. It was an absolutely fantastic experience end to end-personally and professionally. She’s been asked about that summer in every interview she’s had since, and has a wealth of very real stories to tell for all those typical interview questions.
D16 is an econ major. She spent the first part of this summer after freshman year studying abroad, and the last part did a part time unpaid internship with a nonprofit that is big enough to have locations in several states. They had a number of interns, the majority of whom were pre-med. She worked with the area director doing a variety of things. She did a lot of research, some graphic design work (newsletters, fliers), made phone calls, helped plan events. The director also set up a meeting for her with someone who has worked directly in a field she is interested in. She was bored at times, but she gained some valuable experience and insight into the workings of the organization, and the nonprofit field in general.
Those unpaid internships can be really valuable, especially for kids that don’t have enough coursework to get a paid internship or are entering a field with fewer paid internship opportunities. I agree that they disadvantage low-income kids that really need to work summers. I couldn’t have afforded not to work summers during college. D16’s part time internship would have allowed her to work a good number of hours elsewhere for pay, which helps.
NASA did have some housing suggestions so S followed them. He ended up renting blindly but he was ok with it. He also had his rental in LA so at one point he was renting 3 different places–one in LA with lease ending, one with new lease and a place in Newport News near NASA. He handled everything.
Son is now in his 9th (and final!) semester of his Civil-E program.
This summer he worked at a pathways internship for a federal government department. He has the option to transition to a full time government civilian position if he chooses to after graduation.
The position was paid and was very close to home. It was more in line with what he wants to be doing long term (structural engineering) than his previous internship (after freshman year) or co-op position.
So, after spending 5 1/2 years 500 miles away at college, he may be coming back to work about 30 miles from where he grew up (it doesn’t hurt that he also managed to find a girlfriend while he was here for the summer).
My daughter got a job in her field a little late in the summer, but she was very happy. It was paid, but not top dollar. It was at a small civil engineering firm and she learned that she can be helpful to a company (she always doubts her skills) and she learned that even though some of the guys (all guys except her) have 20 years of experience, they still can’t follow directions. Her directions. She was mostly doing budgets for bids and she’d tell them and tell them not to mix time on different projects or different parts of projects, but they kept turning in estimates with errors and she’d have to send them back.
She was also shocked to learn how much permits cost for a project.
They liked her and one guy suggested they just home school her for the rest of college. Uh, no. I don’t know if she’ll work there next year or try for a bigger, better paying job.
My kiddo had an REU position, and loved it. Paid room and board plus a $5000 stipend, for ten week’s work. She worked on a research project involving fish and benthic insects that might publish. If it does, she’ll be credited as a tertiary author by the lead investigator. She made some excellent contacts, and solidified her grad school strategy. Gained some excellent references, and made some friends from all over the country, saw a lot of beautiful sunsets at the beach, and did some very challenging field work. She got very tan. And got rained on, a lot. All in all, a wonderful experience. She said the guidance on grad school applications and interviews was invaluable.
