Ask HN: Should I Accept or not this internship opportunity ?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=562202

by dreur • 17 years ago

7 5 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm doing an internship in a big international company in Europ and they just offered me to do my next internship with them.

Knowing that :

* I'm in my first year of university in computer science in Canada in a Coop program (4 months internship / 4 months of courses) and that I still have 2 internships left to do

* That my parents are in that same country

* That it might be difficult to find internships back in Canada due to the difficult economic time.

* That I would prefer to find an internship in Ottawa, Canada to be near my girlfriend, to practice my english and to possibly do my internship in a startup (or in that same company if possible - but not as interesting as the work offered in europ)

What do you think of my situation ? What should I answer ?

Thanks for your advice

tjic2• 17 years ago

When do you have to decide?

How much looking have you done for an internship in Canada?

dreur• 17 years ago

Will have to decide within a week.

I haven't done any searching yet except sending my cv to that company division in Canada to be told I have to go through the standard way (sending my cv by their website) to apply for an internship even if I already worked there.

I still have a little more than 4 months to find an internship.

tjic2• 17 years ago

> I haven't done any searching yet except sending my cv to that company division in Canada to be told I have to go through the standard way (sending my cv by their website) to apply for an internship even if I already worked there.

Make your own success.

Find out who approves interns, and reach out to that person. Tell me "You've got six days to make this happen".

I spent far too much of my life following the rules.

The chutes and ramps are for the cattle.

Most people are cattle, so organizations that want to deal with lots of people use chutes and ramps.

However, most organizations also are willing to work with a rock star, a rule breaker, and someone who makes his own luck.

On that note: good luck!

jchor• 17 years ago

Do u go to Waterloo? I'm an alumn there and have been through this many times.

My advice is that your first few jobs are very important. I have done countless interviews (as an interviewer) myself and when it comes to selecting students to interview, the coversheet with the companies you worked for and the titles on them usually count the most. So if you want to be a dev and get leg up on the competition then make sure that you get a dev job as soon as you can and this way you can jump ahead of the curve. I have seen a lot of people take an IT job early in their co-op careers and they paid for that mistake later. But all said and done, no matter what happens its what you make of it. Let me know if you want some hints on how to get noticed. There area lot of things that you can do to stand-out and get noticed.

In principle, here are the basic 3 steps.

1. Submit kick-ass resume that gets noticed and selected. 2. Interview for the job. 3. Negotiate terms of your offer. This is more-so for FTE, but interns can negotiate a lot of things too if they choose to do so.

To answer your question though, do you think that this company can help you learn and explore an area that you are interested in? If so, then go for it. Co-op is the time to explore and really go out there and try things out with little risk and to network. My biggest regret from my co-op was not going to Europe, Japan, and other places for opportunities. I did 5/6 of my internships in the US and I felt that really hampered the opportunities that I would have had now if I went further out.

Good Luck!

frossie• 17 years ago

We use Canadian co-ops at our shop. Being offered a second internship at the same place is a big compliment - we only offer a second term to the best students. Doing a second co-op in the same company has certain practical advantages (eg. minimising your moving costs) but also professional advantages: it allows you to deepen your expertise, and it makes you more memorable to the people who work there - I am still writing references for co-ops we had years ago, and one 2-term co-op now has a permanent position with us.

If your main concern is whether you will be able to secure an internship in Canada, you should raise this issue with your co-op co-ordinator at your University - s/he will know whether they are successfully placing all the students or not.

I have no advice about the girlfriend situation :-)

Ask HN: Should I Accept or not this internship opportunity ?

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