Our company loves interns. With so many local colleges encouraging co-ops, we are able to keep a healthy supply of interns year-round. In my opinion, interning at our small company provides awesome exposure to lots of different facets of web development, but while they get to do a lot of coding, the internship doesn't offer too much career development. What were some of your favorite or most helpful experiences your internship provided?
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Hi Aaron!
I have two great experiences from different internships that I'd like to share.
I had an internship where I did an average amount of coding and didn't provide me with a lot of new knowledge, however it stands out in my resume. I also reference it a lot in my other job interviews. It was because they gave me a project where I owned it and was fully accountable. This was something the employees will be using every day if I succeeded. This meant I had a professional stake in it and was determined to launch it at the end of my term. I left that internship accomplished and feeling incredibly proud of myself!
They always say metrics matter when it comes to describing your work experience in your resume. (for example: My project X was used by X employees daily. It also saved X amount of time for the maintainers.) Having that in my resume mattered a lot to me.
The second one was the presence of an actual mentor. My internship was organized, structured, and had valuable experiences that wasn't easily accessible to me previously: client communication, participating in team meetings, providing insight/input, providing directions to a product - pretty much just as a regular employee would.
After experiencing various internship styles, I always looked for these: mentorship, project accountability, and structured internship program.