Part of the CS Internship Guide

Career Counselors

When I was a student, the College of Natural Sciences had a career center. Career counselors were there to review your resume, help you practice interviewing, and prepare students for the job/internship hunt. All the college career counselors I’ve met were wonderfully nice and genuinely wanted students to succeed.

The problem was that none of them had worked in software.

The career counselors had degrees in subjects such as psychology, chemistry, and biology. They suggested that I, a computer science major, list things like “proficient in Microsoft Office” on my resume.

Informal Networks

The best college career advice I got came from other computer science students at my university. The upperclassmen in the CS department had interviewed for software internships and programmed at real-world tech companies. Students shared their experience through informal networks, like the UTCS Facebook page, or even talking–gasp–in meatspace.

I feel that I got better internship advice from my classmates than I did from the career center. The college career counselors were good for a few things–like how to prepare for a career fair–but it was my classmates that taught me the importance of GitHub, how to write a technical resume, and tons of other CS-specific tips that only come from experience.

My intent is that the CS Internship Guide will be another source of experience for you to learn from. And to go further, you’ll get out into meatspace and learn how to get a CS internship by doing it.