College freshman plans for summer

[Anonymous]

What is your college freshman planning to do this summer? Internships seem to be so hard to get with most companies looking for a Junior or Senior year student. Apart from the typical summer jobs, what are some good options for a CS/STEM rising sophomore to build their experience/resume?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is your college freshman planning to do this summer? Internships seem to be so hard to get with most companies looking for a Junior or Senior year student. Apart from the typical summer jobs, what are some good options for a CS/STEM rising sophomore to build their experience/resume?

I have the same question. To ride on the original post, what are some internship opportunities in the DMV for a college freshman interested in public policy analysis and environmental science?

[Anonymous]

I have to admit I was worried about that too last year. Thinking DC needs to have a job, needs to have an internship etc for the summer.

DC went back on campus in july and knocked out a GE requirement. Outside of that DC relaxed and helped around the house.

This year as Sophomore DC is working in 2 research labs and one of them offered DC to keep working next summer. So, staying on campus for that.

The point I am trying to make, not very eloquently, is to not worry. They do not need to have an internship/job lined up for their freshman summer. If they keep reaching out and slowly building relationships it will happen.

Best wishes to you and your kids.

[Anonymous]

January is a bit late to apply, but there are LOTS of STEM internship opportunities in this area. Important that one’s resume indicates computer skills/languages & key courses taken, as that both increases the chances of getting an offer and also increases the chances of an offer more directly in student’s interest areas.

Federal student internships are paid, but require US citizenship [permanent resident is not sufficient]. They exist at various local DOD labs (ARL in Adelphi, NRL in DC, ONR and AFOSR in Arlington), DOD systems centers (NSWC at Carderock, NSWC at Indian Head, DISA at Ft Meade), and at various civilian agencies (NIST in G’burg, NIH in Bethesda, FDA at White Oak). Pay per hour varies with how much study has been completed. These are offered to HS students and college students via separate programs.

Most large defense contractors also have internships. So also do multiple large FFRDCs (Aerospace in Chantilly, Mitre in Tysons) and UARCs (JHU/APL near Columbia).

In many cases, the application deadline is in the fall. However, call the HR office at whichever of these are near you and ask. Worst case they say “too late” and best case you at least can apply.

For all of the above, it is helpful to have knowledge of Unix (Linux), knowledge of C, C++, or Python programming languages, and scientific tools such as Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, or R. If student has any of that, be certain it is listed clearly on the resume.

[Anonymous]

Summer job at a summer camp (same job as last summer). He wants to save up to buy a car so he’s looking for a second job to supplement.

[Anonymous]

Lifeguard and chase chicks. Save the internships for the upperclass years. The chance of a job offer coming from a freshman summer internship is much smaller. Too much can change in 3+ years.

[Anonymous]

My freshman environmental science student is applying for internships with the expectation that it is unlikely that she'll get one as a freshman. Might end up doing Student Conservation Crew or staying home and getting a retail job. Would love a job at nature center or plant nursery. She has been a counselor at an environmental-education sleepaway camp for the past couple years but would prefer not to do that again.

January is definitely not too late to be looking. She's found a lot of organizations that say they will post jobs in mid January or February.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lifeguard and chase chicks. Save the internships for the upperclass years. The chance of a job offer coming from a freshman summer internship is much smaller. Too much can change in 3+ years.

+1 on this. It’s their last free, fun summer. They should get a job and make money but save the internship stress for next year. Trust me, it comes soon enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to admit I was worried about that too last year. Thinking DC needs to have a job, needs to have an internship etc for the summer.

DC went back on campus in july and knocked out a GE requirement. Outside of that DC relaxed and helped around the house.

This year as Sophomore DC is working in 2 research labs and one of them offered DC to keep working next summer. So, staying on campus for that.

The point I am trying to make, not very eloquently, is to not worry. They do not need to have an internship/job lined up for their freshman summer. If they keep reaching out and slowly building relationships it will happen.

Best wishes to you and your kids.

Thank you PP. Really helps hearing your kid's experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:January is a bit late to apply, but there are LOTS of STEM internship opportunities in this area. Important that one’s resume indicates computer skills/languages & key courses taken, as that both increases the chances of getting an offer and also increases the chances of an offer more directly in student’s interest areas.

Federal student internships are paid, but require US citizenship [permanent resident is not sufficient]. They exist at various local DOD labs (ARL in Adelphi, NRL in DC, ONR and AFOSR in Arlington), DOD systems centers (NSWC at Carderock, NSWC at Indian Head, DISA at Ft Meade), and at various civilian agencies (NIST in G’burg, NIH in Bethesda, FDA at White Oak). Pay per hour varies with how much study has been completed. These are offered to HS students and college students via separate programs.

Most large defense contractors also have internships. So also do multiple large FFRDCs (Aerospace in Chantilly, Mitre in Tysons) and UARCs (JHU/APL near Columbia).

In many cases, the application deadline is in the fall. However, call the HR office at whichever of these are near you and ask. Worst case they say “too late” and best case you at least can apply.

For all of the above, it is helpful to have knowledge of Unix (Linux), knowledge of C, C++, or Python programming languages, and scientific tools such as Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, or R. If student has any of that, be certain it is listed clearly on the resume.

Thank you, very helpful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is your college freshman planning to do this summer? Internships seem to be so hard to get with most companies looking for a Junior or Senior year student. Apart from the typical summer jobs, what are some good options for a CS/STEM rising sophomore to build their experience/resume?

If you are a DC resident, register for the summer youth jobs program. There are some large companies such as Accenture and some Government IT contractors that participate. These are what I might call quasi-interships...but you can still list it as a Summer internship with a name company that should help in future years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is your college freshman planning to do this summer? Internships seem to be so hard to get with most companies looking for a Junior or Senior year student. Apart from the typical summer jobs, what are some good options for a CS/STEM rising sophomore to build their experience/resume?

Freshman summer is for chilling.

[Anonymous]

My rising college senior will have 3 internships in 3 summers. It’s possible. And each internship has helped secure the next. To the PP who said freshman internships don’t translate to FT job offers at graduation. Of course they don’t. That’s not what it’s about. The early internship sets the kid apart during sophomore internship application season when all the other kids have something lame like camp counselor, lifeguard and retail shop on their resume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My rising college senior will have 3 internships in 3 summers. It’s possible. And each internship has helped secure the next. To the PP who said freshman internships don’t translate to FT job offers at graduation. Of course they don’t. That’s not what it’s about. The early internship sets the kid apart during sophomore internship application season when all the other kids have something lame like camp counselor, lifeguard and retail shop on their resume.

The kids who have zero work history will be the ones who will have trouble finding internships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My rising college senior will have 3 internships in 3 summers. It’s possible. And each internship has helped secure the next. To the PP who said freshman internships don’t translate to FT job offers at graduation. Of course they don’t. That’s not what it’s about. The early internship sets the kid apart during sophomore internship application season when all the other kids have something lame like camp counselor, lifeguard and retail shop on their resume.

You forgot about chasing chicks. That's just as important as the lifeguard job. The guy who knows how to get girlz is the guy who aces the interview. The same social skills and selling of yourself apply.