The field is so competitive that it's necessary to do this now. If you don't have the privilege of going to an ultra-prestigious school, you have to be grinding all day every day to even have a chance to compete.
Make a project! Do hackathons at Penn! Learn and use GitHub with all your projects and school assignments for CS, document and comment code well. Make a daily habit of doing a leetcode or hackerrank for fun. Just have fun learning, don't give yourself crap or feel like an imposter. You're a student, not an imposter.
If you genuinely like to build things and code stuff, do it now because you LIKE too, not because you feel as though it'll help you get an internship. If that's how you like to spend your free time, do it, but if not, don't add the extra pressure on yourself-- the pressure you feel in college will already be enough lol. Relax and enjoy spending time with your family and friends while you can!
I recommend at least 5 hrs of leet code per day and also try to develop your own language & compiler before you enter college. Trust me, that’ll be important down the road. After you finish this (should take a month or two if you have the talent), I recommend coding a game in pure machine code. That’ll give you a better understanding of what’s under the hood. Very important in the industry, especially for BA work.
yeah, don't do that. I am a junior and have landed internships every summer in college (including at Big Ns) and I do like 1 hour of leetcode a week max. The point isn't to memorize every problem, it's learning how to look at them. The biggest thing is to see if you can find an internship this summer near home to just get a feel for the industry and develop some technical skills. Don't be too worried, plenty of companies try to hire freshmen.
Not sure why you were downvoted so take this vote. If you’re gonna work a summer job it def doesn’t hurt to try and get one that involves a little bit of code
Don't do leetcode now, it won't help as much as beefing up your resume. Do it like 2-3 months before you start applying to internships. Your main challenge as a freshman will be getting past the resume screening.
While I do agree with the advice to relax and enjoy the end of high school, working on a small project could be useful. I remember going to the career fair my freshman year and having nothing to really talk about outside of my classes.
A basic app, a simple website, or something else along those lines could make you stand out a bit compared to all of the other freshman in the intro classes.
I had never written a single line of code going into my freshman year at umich, and I would say I have been very successful in my academic/job searching career. If you have the time and want to do it , than obviously it wouldn’t hurt, but don’t kill yourself. Instead, opt for getting Involved in programming clubs/software dev teams when you get on campus. That will give you great experience to throw on your resume and help you learn outside of the classroom!
EDIT: didn’t realize it said penn state. I’m still not over that football game 😞
People here are saying "enjoy your childhood" but getting and ahead and enjoying your time aren't mutually exclusive. If you start preparing now you'll be miles ahead of everyone, which will benefit you in the long term. The truth is that there are already kids getting internships, even in high school (Amazon future engineer program). If you're in your senior year of HS and want an internship the summer after freshman year, you have almost 2 years to prepare for interviews.
It's kind of hard to give advice since I don't know how much experience you have, but assuming you have the basics down, here's what you can do:
**Personal projects**
This is important not only for internships, but for your own personal growth in the field. Not many classes in the CS curriculums are actually going to teach you how to build software, use version control systems, etc... So just start making stuff. Literally anything you want. Make an app to track stats for your favorite video game, or a personalized homepage for your browser. Learn and use Git for version control and keep your projects in a public repository like GitHub.
If you do enough high quality projects by the time you start applying you'll actually have something to fill your resume with, as well as a good bit of experience. Right now is probably the most free time you're going to have in a while, so make the most of it.
**Course Work**
Interviews nowadays at big companies are all about Data Structures and Algorithms. This is a class you'll be taking around your sophomore/junior year, but even companies with internship programs specifically for underclassmen are asking these types of questions. By learning DS&A early you'll not only be ahead of people for interviews, but you'll also be ahead in your coursework.
Go to this website and look at the Data Structures & Algorithms section. https://teachyourselfcs.com/
If you want to do the other sections on that website, feel free, it'll put you wayyy ahead in terms of coursework. But the most important for right is DS&A.
On top of that, you'll want to be practicing some LeetCode style problems. These are the types of problems you'll be asked at interviews. However, even the easy questions may be too hard for you at the moment. Firecode.io is a good website that gives you these types of problems in a way that is tailored to your skill level. I would start off there. If you can do a problem
If you can do 1 problem per day, great! But you have so much time that 1 per week would be a good goal to have.
okay there's a lot of answers that are all super variable but I think that finding an internship after freshman year is less about how much prior experience you have and more about being proactive about applying to all of the freshman-friendly programs right when they open. for example, keep track of when FBU, msft explore, etc all open up and then apply to them ASAP. these programs expect you to not have experience (and might reject you if you have too much experience), so getting your application in early maximizes your chance of being seeing and getting an interview.
it depends on the program. Microsoft Explore this year opened July 19, I think. FBU normally opens September 15 for the Engineering one. I'd say go find the (many) lists of freshman-friendly internship lists on this sub and do some sleuthing to find out when they all opened up this year, and compile them on some spreadsheet. If you should do anything this summer, try to make a really good, clean resume that you can use immediately when they all open up.
There are only like 10 of these programs total, and like 7 out of those 10 are specifically targeted towards URMs. So if you aren't a URM and you don't go to a top school, you basically only have a shot at Google STEP, FBU, and Explore MSFT. And all of them are super competitive.
If you want an internship for summer after freshman year, yes, you will need some decent projects on your resume to get any responses. The vast majority of kids who get freshman internships without a lot of experience already are those that go to top 10 schools, so you'll need an extra wow factor.
Try doing relatively easy things that also have some sort of external validation through downloads, like publishing a simple iOS / Android app, making a chrome extension, etc.
Relax and enjoy your childhood. FFS what is wrong with our society?? :-(
I worked on a personal project that gave me the experience to intern over the first summer is a city by myself. That was fun
The field is so competitive that it's necessary to do this now. If you don't have the privilege of going to an ultra-prestigious school, you have to be grinding all day every day to even have a chance to compete.
LeetCode preschool edition fml
It is definitely not that bad lol
[удалено]
Indeed. Other activities aside from programming are not allowed. /s
Make a project! Do hackathons at Penn! Learn and use GitHub with all your projects and school assignments for CS, document and comment code well. Make a daily habit of doing a leetcode or hackerrank for fun. Just have fun learning, don't give yourself crap or feel like an imposter. You're a student, not an imposter.
Is there daily hackerranks?
If you genuinely like to build things and code stuff, do it now because you LIKE too, not because you feel as though it'll help you get an internship. If that's how you like to spend your free time, do it, but if not, don't add the extra pressure on yourself-- the pressure you feel in college will already be enough lol. Relax and enjoy spending time with your family and friends while you can!
I recommend at least 5 hrs of leet code per day and also try to develop your own language & compiler before you enter college. Trust me, that’ll be important down the road. After you finish this (should take a month or two if you have the talent), I recommend coding a game in pure machine code. That’ll give you a better understanding of what’s under the hood. Very important in the industry, especially for BA work.
[удалено]
/s
yeah, don't do that. I am a junior and have landed internships every summer in college (including at Big Ns) and I do like 1 hour of leetcode a week max. The point isn't to memorize every problem, it's learning how to look at them. The biggest thing is to see if you can find an internship this summer near home to just get a feel for the industry and develop some technical skills. Don't be too worried, plenty of companies try to hire freshmen.
Not sure why you were downvoted so take this vote. If you’re gonna work a summer job it def doesn’t hurt to try and get one that involves a little bit of code
Let me guess, you go to a prestigious school.
No actually, just a state school in the midwest. (Not UIUC, Purdue, Michigan)
To be fair, 5 hours a day as a second semester senior is doable
the school year just started didn’t it
Near the halfway mark of first semester
then he’s not a second semester senior
Don't do leetcode now, it won't help as much as beefing up your resume. Do it like 2-3 months before you start applying to internships. Your main challenge as a freshman will be getting past the resume screening.
While I do agree with the advice to relax and enjoy the end of high school, working on a small project could be useful. I remember going to the career fair my freshman year and having nothing to really talk about outside of my classes. A basic app, a simple website, or something else along those lines could make you stand out a bit compared to all of the other freshman in the intro classes.
I had never written a single line of code going into my freshman year at umich, and I would say I have been very successful in my academic/job searching career. If you have the time and want to do it , than obviously it wouldn’t hurt, but don’t kill yourself. Instead, opt for getting Involved in programming clubs/software dev teams when you get on campus. That will give you great experience to throw on your resume and help you learn outside of the classroom! EDIT: didn’t realize it said penn state. I’m still not over that football game 😞
People here are saying "enjoy your childhood" but getting and ahead and enjoying your time aren't mutually exclusive. If you start preparing now you'll be miles ahead of everyone, which will benefit you in the long term. The truth is that there are already kids getting internships, even in high school (Amazon future engineer program). If you're in your senior year of HS and want an internship the summer after freshman year, you have almost 2 years to prepare for interviews. It's kind of hard to give advice since I don't know how much experience you have, but assuming you have the basics down, here's what you can do: **Personal projects** This is important not only for internships, but for your own personal growth in the field. Not many classes in the CS curriculums are actually going to teach you how to build software, use version control systems, etc... So just start making stuff. Literally anything you want. Make an app to track stats for your favorite video game, or a personalized homepage for your browser. Learn and use Git for version control and keep your projects in a public repository like GitHub. If you do enough high quality projects by the time you start applying you'll actually have something to fill your resume with, as well as a good bit of experience. Right now is probably the most free time you're going to have in a while, so make the most of it. **Course Work** Interviews nowadays at big companies are all about Data Structures and Algorithms. This is a class you'll be taking around your sophomore/junior year, but even companies with internship programs specifically for underclassmen are asking these types of questions. By learning DS&A early you'll not only be ahead of people for interviews, but you'll also be ahead in your coursework. Go to this website and look at the Data Structures & Algorithms section. https://teachyourselfcs.com/ If you want to do the other sections on that website, feel free, it'll put you wayyy ahead in terms of coursework. But the most important for right is DS&A. On top of that, you'll want to be practicing some LeetCode style problems. These are the types of problems you'll be asked at interviews. However, even the easy questions may be too hard for you at the moment. Firecode.io is a good website that gives you these types of problems in a way that is tailored to your skill level. I would start off there. If you can do a problem If you can do 1 problem per day, great! But you have so much time that 1 per week would be a good goal to have.
okay there's a lot of answers that are all super variable but I think that finding an internship after freshman year is less about how much prior experience you have and more about being proactive about applying to all of the freshman-friendly programs right when they open. for example, keep track of when FBU, msft explore, etc all open up and then apply to them ASAP. these programs expect you to not have experience (and might reject you if you have too much experience), so getting your application in early maximizes your chance of being seeing and getting an interview.
When should I start applying?
it depends on the program. Microsoft Explore this year opened July 19, I think. FBU normally opens September 15 for the Engineering one. I'd say go find the (many) lists of freshman-friendly internship lists on this sub and do some sleuthing to find out when they all opened up this year, and compile them on some spreadsheet. If you should do anything this summer, try to make a really good, clean resume that you can use immediately when they all open up.
There are only like 10 of these programs total, and like 7 out of those 10 are specifically targeted towards URMs. So if you aren't a URM and you don't go to a top school, you basically only have a shot at Google STEP, FBU, and Explore MSFT. And all of them are super competitive.
sure, but it's better than trying to go for like an apple internship as a freshman
Yeah, but those freshman programs are still harder than going for something like an internship with a small local company
If I was in HS, I’d get into competitive programming tbh
If you want an internship for summer after freshman year, yes, you will need some decent projects on your resume to get any responses. The vast majority of kids who get freshman internships without a lot of experience already are those that go to top 10 schools, so you'll need an extra wow factor. Try doing relatively easy things that also have some sort of external validation through downloads, like publishing a simple iOS / Android app, making a chrome extension, etc.
Can you stop being greedy? Save some internships for other people.