Hilltopmom Posted February 18, 2016 Share Posted February 18, 2016 S/o from my textbook search post. I'm looking for ideas of "types of employers" to look into for a high school student interested in interning to learn more about comp sci career fields. He has experience programming in Java for robotics (not many employers looking for that skill, lol) & wants to look into different types of careers out there with a comp sci degree. I have a few local friends who are programmers, but all work long distance from home. We live in a rural area with a small city with a SUNY school, a hospital, & some small factories/ industry. I do know some SUNY faculty that I'll ask for ideas too, but I know that they don't arrange (or encourage) internships even for their own students, so I don't think they'll necessarily have options for high schoolers. I know most places use computers, he's not interested in tech support, but I really have no idea, other than programming, what types of places to even try to approach. My husband suggested a few places he knows that use automated production lines ( factories). Any ideas? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilaclady Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 Just trying to bump- can you look through your yellow pages for technology company if you still get them or your local chamber of commerce if you have one. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FriedClams Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 I'd start asking around your friend group. I think an internship is (or should be) as much about mentoring as it is about the work/knowledge. I'd find a good, safe, trusted mentor and see if they would work with your child. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 I have a few local friends who are programmers, but all work long distance from home. We live in a rural area with a small city with a SUNY school, a hospital, & some small factories/ industry. I do know some SUNY faculty that I'll ask for ideas too, but I know that they don't arrange (or encourage) internships even for their own students, so I don't think they'll necessarily have options for high schoolers. I'd contact all of the places you mention. The reality is that schools, hospitals, and good-sized businesses all have IT departments. Within those departments there probably will be a little of everything -- tech support, programming, databases, networks, web design, etc. A lot if that type of work is indeed put out to contractors who work from home, so I'm not sure what you'll find. At least in my area, internships for high school students in that area are very scarce. It's a very competitive area where they want someone who contribute to their bottom line. Because of proprietary and privacy issues, finding a "shadowing" internship isn't usually done. Keep in mind that computer science is math-oriented, conceptual degree with some specialization in the last two years. Picking a speciality at the beginning is not expected. Information technology is a more business-oriented, application degree. It goes back-and-forth as to what is really best for employment. Taking one or two semesters off for a co-op job after their sophomore year is a must. Getting a job with just a degree is very difficult right now. For awhile computer science was better, but of late my contacts are saying that an analytics-focused IT degree is very hot. I've been a computer science/IT professor for 15+ years, and it's an extremely dynamic field with a lot of regional differences. And of course what is "hot" now, may not be in 4-6 years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 Unfortunately the only real way to get a high school internship is to have a really big "in" in the company because HR has to file special pAperwork for safety reasons. However if your child is a girl or a ministry or low income there are tons of special opportunities with MIT, HP, and many other places that have special IT summer "internships" which are sort of like group experiences with some hands on coding but not a true job-like internship, but still very valuable if he qualifies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
................... Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 Yes, Degree should be in COMP SCI with tons of math and analytics and also experience :) even the QA guys and gals at my husbands company have Comp Sci degrees not IT or just Tech 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anne1456 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 You could see if there are any local non-profits that need work done. My son is working improving on the website for a small local history museum this summer. It is not really an internship or computer science, but it is useful and somewhat related to his interests. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopmom Posted February 19, 2016 Author Share Posted February 19, 2016 You could see if there are any local non-profits that need work done. My son is working improving on the website for a small local history museum this summer. It is not really an internship or computer science, but it is useful and somewhat related to his interests. That's a great idea! He just finished a GPS mapping project for our historical society, I hadn't thought to see if they could use anything else:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AEC Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 realistically, High School internships that don't feel like IT are going to be quite difficult to come by. Most HS students aren't ready for anything more. Further, from the prospective of the employeer, it makes no sense to have someone develope something interesting and then leave - who's going to maintain it? Someone mentioned website maintenance - that's a pretty reasonable idea. I also suggest not totally discounting an 'IT' internship. It's a useful skill to have (even though it's rapidly changing as the world out-sources a growing fraction of their IT into the cloud). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AEC Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 one other thought - has he considered getting involved with an open-source software project? It's not really an internship, but a good community will provide access to code-reviews and code-to-review, as well as being an avenue to join something that'll feel more like 'computer science' and less like 'it'. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 one other thought - has he considered getting involved with an open-source software project? It's not really an internship, but a good community will provide access to code-reviews and code-to-review, as well as being an avenue to join something that'll feel more like 'computer science' and less like 'it'. This year just closed but something like Google Code-in, https://developers.google.com/open-source/gci/ , could be a good intro to this for 13yo+ high schoolers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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