Internships are vital to the growth of your career, but also to building connections within a company. They help you build professional relationships, meet potential employers, and gain skills that can be applied in future roles. But choosing the right internship is important. So let’s look at the dos and don’ts for those who want to intern.
As you prepare for your first year of college, there are certain things that you should know. First and foremost, internships are one of the best ways to build a resume. They also teach you how to work in a team and give you valuable experience on how the real world works. Internships are crucial for the first year of college students because they help them gain skills and experience in their chosen career path.
internships for 1st-year college students
What should a 1st-year college student do in the summer to help their career?
There are a lot of answers to this question already. I am adding some stuff I found really helpful in landing me internships after my 2nd and during my 3rd year of college.
- Try Coursera. Join a course, and learn to have a perspective. They have courses on topics ranging from coding and UX design to Death (yes!). The interface is friendly, and you can actually enjoy education and not studies.
- Improve your public speaking skills: And this is different from perfecting English (or the language of your choice). This is about sounding confident, being expressive, and understanding the subtle art of conversation. Ever tried a group discussion? Go for some. They teach you how to channelize conversations the way you want, take control and shape the thoughts of a group.
- Do Creative Stuff: Very important. This is the time you are not burdened with exams or assignments. Take time out and build stuff. With your hands (paint, best out of waste), with your pen (stories, a crazy blog, anything), or on your computer (Photoshop, Web Design, etc). This may sound silly, but stuff gets exciting when you add step 4 to it.
- ASK QUESTIONS: About anything, and everything. Politics, history, religion, environment, culture… anything you read about online or in the newspaper. Go deep. Understand world conflicts, understand perspectives. Build an informed opinion (THIS will help you in every interview you EVER sit for.)
And oh, when you add irrepressible curiosity to creativity, you walk the lines of EVERY great individual whoever did great stuff. Anyone. You name it, they’ve done it.
- The rest of the stuff I was going to write is already in User‘s answer.
What I really want you to do is simple.
1. Learn new stuff (which they might not teach you in your college!)
2. Learn how to think and self examine (your paintings or articles… your thoughts)
3. Learn what to think about, and learn to have an opinion about it
4. Learn how to present and discuss your opinion
MY OWN STORY
Many people think that they are underqualified to work on a professional project and cannot do internships while they are ripe first-year students because they “just do not know much”. But that is not true. I can say from my personal experience that every student goes through the same.
I was all ready to ditch all forms of labor (mental, physical, and spiritual) for a three-month-long vacation to be spent with chips, headphones, remote and mobile in a cozy cocoon of blankets with the AC, TV, and laptop at my hand’s reach. But then a friend started his internship at a relative’s company as an intern in Android development. What he just had to do was to observe the debugging, code generation, and app development, and imbibe it into his system (not to mislead, I mean his brain). He was not expected to work there. He came back very satisfied and now has the basic knowledge which he says he will apply when he learns how to use that interface.
What I mean to summarize is that you need not be an expert coder or mastermind at any language or system. You can always learn today and apply tomorrow. After all, vacations like these never happen, and with each year at college, the load to prove yourself in this field increases drastically, leaving you less time to develop the basic skills.
So like I was saying, my friend’s sudden accomplishment had an overwhelming effect. Not on me (as I had my plans chalked out) but on my mother who wanted her little baby to spurt wings and fly away or at least get out of her shell and do something productive.
She made me browse through some indigenous (to the state) companies where I could do an internship. Fortunately for me, I got a place in my city’s leading software company as their web designer and content handler for their ongoing project. My CV (yeah, corporate’s first working rule) consisted of a few basic skills in HTML, CSS, Adobe Photoshop and PHP.
My boss said that he would help me by making his team of trainers available at certain hours so that I could catch up on all that I did not know like jQuery, Ajax, JavaScript, and other such add-ons. And so began my journey as an intern after my first year.
Let me add here that I am essentially a lazy person but for the five hours I worked there, I tried to beat my sleep away, the result of which is that I will be paid at the end of my term. A paid internship is generally unheard of until the third year but here I am! I have successfully built their website and am handling their social networks and online promotion.
And let me tell you, I started from scratch and Google was my sole guide. So never give up on your potential. Start small but start nevertheless. A little hard work always pays. 🙂
- Divyanshi Agrawal
- Computer Science Engineering(CSE) , MNNIT Allahabad
- Answered
I am a 1st-year student at NIT ALLAHABAD CSE student. This is my own relatable story.
This lockdown period is like summer for every college student and really a golden time when i can improve myself, in my field, heading towards a bright future and good career.
▪︎I have been improving my communication skills.
▪︎I have been learning Spanish (this is because of my interest)
▪︎I have been improving my coding skills by practicing on various platforms like hacker rank and CodeChef.(c++ preferably)
▪︎I have also participated in an online hackathon of my college(10 days challenge) where i improved my web development part a little bit
▪︎I am presently learning python.
▪︎And after completing this I have planned to start with c++ again where I left it so that I can complete that also..
So now coming you… be it any branch (even noncse) it is always preferred if you know basic knowledge about coding and various languages…so I will advise you to have a basic view of this field. Start with C or C++.
After you are done with this then you should go through tutorials of your respective branch as well learn new things…
One of my friends from the metallurgical branch has learned so much during these holidays like c++, HTML, CSS, javascript
My other friend who is from mechanical is learning AutoCAD…
Hope it helps!!
