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Ask HN: I got screwed and now im looking for a place to do my internship in.
25 points by EgeBamyasi on Feb 22, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 15 comments
My name is Simon, 23 years old and currently studying Applikationsutveckling(Software Development) in Malmö Sweden. Ive been studying this programme since the fall of 2009 and in October this year I get my degree. Lernia offers KY education(which in Sweden is like a university programme with 6 months of mandatory internship.

I had an internship at a Swedish company who promised me a paid internship. But now they are saying that they never promised me that, and I'm not going to take it so now I'm looking for a place to do my internship in London between 16april and 16 October as I'm tired of the Swedish weather and want to spread my wings a little.

Relevant work experience: I'm currently working as an tutor for the first year students and so far Ive had "Introduction To Computer Programming", "Introduction to Object Oriented Programming", "Algorithms and Datastructures" and "Introduction to databases".

The iPhone-app Hitta Pizza(http://itunes.apple.com/se/app/hitta-pizza/id387973084?mt=8)

Porting a ASP site to ASP.NET and redesigning the underlying database (www.tryckeriguiden.se)

Backup and Unix administrator at AstraZeneca.

*Driven an project at the Kosta Boda concern where a couple of hundred computers where to be replaced and I was in charge of the installation, distribution of software and integrating with the network.

So, if you know a company that's looking for an intern or your company is, do tell! I will be in the UK between the 24:th and 28:th March to meet up.

I can only work at places that offer paid internship as Im not currently able to survive without food, concert tickets and shelter. If you have a cure for that I would be glad to hear from you too!

A little about myself: I have been drawn to computers for literally as long as I can remember. When I was a child I played with the computer all the time and once a month they were forced to call in a guy to fix the computer after I deleted some files just to see what would happen, rearrange the windows folder, fiddled with the BIOS setup etc. etc. etc. etc. Finally my family got fed up and got a Windows 95 install CD and said "You fuck it, you fix it. Otherwise no allowance for you Mr!". That certainly did the trick on me as I was a huge candy addict, so I could say my computer career started as a 8 year old afraid to not get money for my junk!

Since then my computer interest grew and soon I found myself codig hideous websites with lots and lots of gifs, borrowing books about computers at the school library and spending all my allowance on computer magazines and copying example code from them and making small changes to see what would happen.

At the age of 15, broadband finally allowed me to download a Slackware iso. And boy did I get sold on this Linux stuff. Here was a operating system that run smother than Windows, made my friends think i was hacking someones computer when I mounted a cdrom and had all the programs and compilers I could ever want, free and available by a couple of key strokes. What more could you ask for?

But my life is not all about computers. I play electric guitar in a band and record a lot of stuff solo at home(math rock, prog rock, kraut rock´ish things, noise, ambient, electro) and I enjoy riding my fixie bike and skateboard.

On my spare time right now I'm building a computer from the awesome cource TECS(http://pramode.net/2011/01/03/the-most-amazing-cs-course-i-have-seen/), gathering information about fluid math to write a multi core water simulator and playing around with Pure Data.

Thanks for taking the time to read this long! Here is a nice tune for you :) http://vimeo.com/13279606

Edit: Here is my CV!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VTEr8XiySD4L7id6bGLdoTGx0hR7P10lTEGjzAT57BA/edit?hl=en&pli=1#




Apply for Google Summer of Code.

It's not the most profitable option, as it pays "only" $5000 or so, but it's a great experience and looks incredibly good on your resume. And you can work from wherever you want, on whatever schedule you want.

(Disclosure: I've been a GSOC mentor for three years now, soon to be a fourth.)


He'd better make sure that his university accepts that as an internship first, or he might be unable to move on without the mandatory "traditional internship".

Depending on the university (Are they looking for tech experience? Experience "on a job"? Are they progressive thinking or conservative?) they might or might not accept that working on ~something~ during summer fulfills their requirement.

Except for that I totally agree with the advice.


I'd have to disagree, I did HOP GSOC awhile ago, and It had no discernible impact when I was searching for employment, Most people ask what it is, but are largely uninterested.


You might want to elaborate on your skill set and what you hope to learn


And consider expanding your profile to point to github, your CV, or anything else where someone might be able to gauge your skills, interests, competencies, etc.


I don't necessarily think that what someone hopes to learn from an internship is worth much. One of the key things about the most valuable internship I did was that almost everything I learned wasn't in the list of things that I would have expected to learn.


Why not just do more iPhone apps? Fund yourself that way?

Alternately, all the iPhone developer job ads in my country demand someone with an actual published iPhone ap, which you have, so you already have a leg up on the competition.

And if you turn up for an iPhone job looking like a dirty hippie (read as: artist type) that may actually work in your favour as it is expected :D


I work at Softwire – we have a paid internship program in London. Details are here: http://softwire.com/recruitment.htm

It's a friendly and relaxed small company. We do software development and consultancy for other companies, so it's not a "startup" in the HN sense, but instead we get to write new software in a variety of languages and platforms for a different product every 3-6 months.

You can apply on our website if it takes your fancy. We're always looking for top class developers for internships and graduate positions.


Thank´s everyone for taking the time to read, post and spread!

I´m surprised how helpful you have been and how much attention this post generated. HN is truly a force to be reckoned with and I salute you all.


Many years ago I did a CS degree as a 4 year "sandwich" course which involved 1 years industrial experience. My college had to pre-approve my choice of employer/employment and required regular reports (EDIT I know, I wrote one of them). I would be astonished if your college was any different and I strongly doubt that writing iPhone apps would suffice. I found that 1 year period the most valuable of my whole degree, choose wisely.


In the UK paid internships are the norm for software developers, quite a few people are hiring, your best bet might just be to grab a list of UK startups and just go through their websites to see who's looking.

Most tend to advertise internships on twitter as well.


Off the topic: I really recommend you to write your CV in Latex. it'll take some time, but looks much better than a MS-doc-look CV.

Some templates here: http://www.cv-templates.info


Also regarding the resume:

1) I'd separate "Languages" and "Computer skills" 2) A couple of English spelling/punctuation errors 3) Write something concrete like "started with Slackware in 200x" instead of "interested in computers for as long as I can remember" -- cliche, overused phrase.

Hope this helps.


Thanks for the tip!


Have you thought about freelancing? It's a bit scarier, the learning curve is much steeper, but ultimately I think it's a lot more fun and you learn a whole lot more than being pampered at some internship.

You also earn more.




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