Advanced 9th grader seeking an internship

[Anonymous]

Look at your local college & go through the courses and find a course that peaks their interest. Email the professor and ask for an internship. Don't just send a cold email. Do some research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
DD15 really wants an internship at our state university but has no idea how to get one. Her school doesn’t have any programs for this kind of thing and we have no connections.

She’s easily as advanced as a high school senior, at least in STEM (she is taking multivariable calculus and will be taking AP chemistry and physics next year), and has decent writing skills. However, I’m not sure what a high school freshman could do for a professor or PhD student.

Any tips? I’ve seen this topic in forums and people just seemed to say to wait until 11th or 12th grade, which she really doesn’t want to do.

Thanks!

I’d watch the approach. Your child is as advanced as seniors in MATH, not STEM. Classes to be taken in the future won’t help. The answer is that a HS freshman can do very little for a professor. I know of a kid who researched with a professor at a local college based on a referral from his counselor. He was 16 (almost 17).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know of any programs like this at my university. Even in labs where freshmen/sophomore undergrads work, it's mostly doing things that you'd need to be over 18 to do.

Then how do high schoolers get research internships/positions at state colleges, let alone T50s?

[Anonymous]

Have her get a regular job. She's too young.

Also, summer is almost here. Maybe by next summer, you can identify some specific program that is open to her grade. That's still going to require a lot of research and planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A 9th grader can't even get hired as a lifeguard because they're not seen as having the requisite maturity, but you expect a college professor to babysit her for the summer and call it an "internship"? Let her be a kid. She has all of college to chase internships.

My 15 year old is a lifeguard. But I agree with the rest of the advice.

[Anonymous]

Oy vey OP. There are other skills your 9th grader can work on during the summer if she must do anything.

[Anonymous]

Prof here. If just looking for unpaid experience with a Prof, then I agree with the email approach.

I wouldn't give a HS student (or probably an undergraduate) a task that needs brain-work (math/stats/real writing). But I often have work like data-cleaning (working in excel to make sure the data are in the right format) or collecting data from the web or that kind of thing that I'm happy to have a young person do. If they prove themselves, then they'd move to harder tasks.

[Anonymous]

Has to be through your connections though…

[Anonymous]

Do some university classes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the only option is to cold email professors.

There are a variety of formal high school internship programs across the DMV at universities, government agencies and private companies but they

1)almost aways (if not 100% of the time) require the students to be 16 and/or a rising junior or senior.

2) have fall or winter application dates for the following summer. You'd be too late for summer 2024.

To expound upon this, all the federal positions (paid and volunteer) we found required kids to be at least 16. I'm not sure agencies can even hire at 15 so professors with joint government appointments may be bound by this as well.

You should draft a generic email template and then start emailing professors or even grad students at local universities (of course personalizing the greeting, etc each time).

No, the CHILD who wants the internship should do this. NOT Mommy or Daddy.

After thinking hard about the implications of either option, and which is worst for society — and they are each pretty bad — I would say that the child doing this of their own accord is the most disturbing and dysfunctional. I would take the kid’s computer away, tell them not to bother professors until they are enrolled at that university, and make them go play in the yard. MIT be damned.

[Anonymous]

So many parents like OP in Bethesda. I'm glad we moved away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A 9th grader can't even get hired as a lifeguard because they're not seen as having the requisite maturity, but you expect a college professor to babysit her for the summer and call it an "internship"? Let her be a kid. She has all of college to chase internships.

A little harsher than I would have put it, but +1