Portfolio for internship??

[Hilltopmom]

Ds, 16, has been invited to apply for an unpaid engineering internship with a local firm.

(Another homeschool dad was impressed by him & decided to ask his company to offer something for interested high schoolers, how cool is that?!)

 

They'd like him to present a resume & portfolio.

He has a resume of sorts that he can update from applying to summer engineering programs.

He does not have a portfolio. Not sure what to include.

 

He does FTC Robotics, so can include work samples & photos from robotics. He has done some underwater robotics ( have photos & descriptions of that project he can include), & lots of coding on his own.

 

I believe we can scrounge up some work samples from some summer engineering programs too.

 

Just not sure what types of things to include.... Pages of code printed out, written descriptions of projects he's worked on? Brochure from summer programs he's attended? (Since, unlike colleges, the employer isn't likely to know what the programs listed on his resume entail)

 

It's for an "Intro to Engineering" internship.

 

Help!

[SkateLeft]

My oldest daughter has had very well paid internships for the past two summers. She's a computer science and studio art double major, and her focus is on visualization engineering and integrated media.

 

They absolutely loved her portfolio and said that it really set her apart from the other applicants.

 

She included both coding work and art pieces. She used only projects that she'd done on her own, outside of structured assignments. Hiring managers, especially in computer science, see a lot of the same school type assignments utilized as parts of coding portfolios. They were most impressed by the things that my daughter had done as part of her own extensive coding projects. They like seeing something different. She also included her artwork to show how versatile she is. Most of my daughter's portfolio consists of her big hobby coding projects, and work she's done for various development jam events.

 

I'm not sure what field of engineering your student is interested in, but I'd recommend he make himself look as unique as possible. I wouldn't include brochures from summer programs, but I would list them on the resume and have him be prepared to talk about them during the interview. The portfolio should include your son's personal work and should show his passion and personality. They'll ask him to talk about his portfolio in his interview, so it helps if they're things he's excited about.

 

For coding projects, my daughter has pages of code and screenshots printed and put in page protectors. Digital art is also professionally printed in best quality and put into page protectors. She uses a high quality slim binder with a professional looking cover (with her artwork on it). She also has her work uploaded to her website and github, so if they want to see it in action, they can pull it up during the interview.

 

I hope that helps a little! I know it's probably a bit different since your son is a highschooler, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway. Good luck to your son!

 

Edited October 5, 2016 by ghostwheel

[Hilltopmom]

Thanks!

 

We were able to pull some things together today- photos from competitions, newspaper clippings of him leading robotics workshops, summer program projects, printed code from robotics & his personal free time coding projects, drawings of prototypes with revisions, letters of recommendations, course descriptions, certificates of classes he's completed.

 

He still needs to write out some project descriptions to go with the samples and print out more coding samples and screen shots & put it all together in page protectors, maybe add some samples from his robotics engineering notebook.

 

He's most interested right now in computer & electrical engineering and computer science.