Finding Internships in Tech: Guide for First & Second Year Students
Most students find it challenging to find internships in tech after their freshman or sophomore year. It gets even more frustrating when you look up job postings, and they already require “few years of experience”. Through this blog, I hope to help you find some relevant opportunities so that you can have a productive summer and add more experience to your tech journey!
Certain companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Google offer internships that are specifically geared towards first and second year students.
# Facebook offers different internships depending on your interests through Facebook University.
# Google offers Student Training in Engineering Program (STEP) internships, along with Google Summer of Code, through which students work with companies to write code and get a stipend. Although Summer of Code is not an internship, it is a great experience and a starting point to set your foot in the industry.
# Lastly, Microsoft offers Explore Program, which is a 12 week internship aimed towards helping students figure out what technical areas are of interest to them.
If these opportunities don’t work out, you can still do lots!
My #1 advice is to start building your own portfolio through personal projects and upload them to GitHub. This will show future employers initiative, passion, and proactiveness. You also get to learn new skills. While it’s difficult to come up with projects, there are tutorials on YouTube that guide beginners through solving problems using code, and this can fuel your thinking.
There are also courses available online that you can do in the summer through Udemy, Coursera, and LeetCode to expand your skillset for the upcoming year. Consider participating in hackathons as well because they have students from different universities, and these interactions can help you find relevant opportunities, not to mention that you’ll be solving cool problems using code and adding to your experience!
If you’re really keen on working during the summer:
You should network with people and try securing job offers at smaller companies and startups. This is still a great way to learn and build connection. You can attend career fairs which usually help you find such opportunities.
You should also set up a LinkedIn account to network with people and keep an eye out for jobs that might interest you. If you are looking forward to work for a startup, you can begin your search on AngelList, which is made just for this purpose!
You can also work on making your own company to solve a problem that you’re passionate about. The best way to do this is through the U of T Hatchery which helps students start their companies!
I hope this blog helps you find something, and if you are aware of some other opportunity that might benefit other students, drop it in the comments below!
