Why You Should Do as Many Internships as Possible

I studied Software Engineering at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario. uWaterloo has a different way of running engineering programs than most other universities around the world. By joining the uWaterloo Engineering faculty as a student, you are committing to a 4 year and 8 month program (as opposed to the normal 3 year and 8 months) in which you don’t get summers off. You commit to doing a minimum of 20 months of onsite industry training in 5 different 4 month internships (or as they are called there, co-ops), and you are encouraged to do the additional 6th and final 4 month intership as well. The engineering programs are often structured such that you complete your first 8 months of school (junior year) and from then until completion of senior year, students do a 4 month internship, followed by a 4 month school term and repeat this process. Most (if not all) other programs offered by the University of Waterloo also provide an option to do this co-op stream if the student so desires and has the grades to support it. The Engineering faculty is the only one in which this style of study is mandatory.

Having recently been through this program I am a very big advocate of it. While not all of the engineering programs at UW are blessed the same abundance of internship and job opportunities, I was fortunate. Through this program I traveled and worked 5 different cities for 6 different companies in 4 separate technology related industries. The ability to experience so many different companies of different sizes and in different industries gave me several different advantages over students who did not have this opportunity:

• I graduated with 2 years of work experience thus making me significantly more valuable to an employer than most other students graduating without experience
• I was able to determine the industries I enjoy working in, and the industries I don’t enjoy
• I figured out my specific strengths on the job and was able to focus and prepare myself for jobs of that kind in my job search
• I determined the company size and environment that best suits my work style
• I had the opportunity to travel and work in many locations and find the right city for me
• I gained many friends and contacts through my internships

Obviously the biggest benefit - especially from an employer’s perspective - is the experience I received while on my internships. The amount experience that I entered the workplace with allows me to pick up the workload assigned to me without going through much of the orientation to company structure that is usually associated with hiring recent college or university graduates that haven’t been through many (or any) internships. Beyond the benefit for the organization, the level of experience I have makes me more marketable to companies, which in turn raises my starting salary, benefits, and makes me more sought after.

Beyond simply having experience on the job, I was able to determine my strengths and what types of projects I specifically enjoy working on. Many studies (and to be honest, simple common sense) indicate that employees working on projects they enjoy and feel comfortable with increase in productivity. I’d say it’s fairly clear that this is associated with the fact that enjoying what you do makes you more likely to do it, and less likely to be distracted from it by small things. I enjoy analytical and automation work. Anything to do with reporting, artificial intelligence, or machine learning is very intriguing to me, and knowing this ahead of time allows me to narrow my job search to positions which will allow me to do these kinds of tasks. Employers are more likely to hire me because they now know that I have experience AND interest in the position I am applying for. I am also less likely to simply change jobs or even industries because it is more likely that I will enjoy what I am working on. This makes me a less risky investment to them. It is very important to realize that hiring someone is very much an investment - the company spends a LARGE quantity of money and time upfront to hire and train a new employee. This amount of money is often 60% or more of the new employee’s yearly salary. The investment is a bet that a new employee will stay long enough that their productivity in the long run will outweigh the cost of bringing them aboard. Depending on the industry, this may or may not be a high risk investment. The tech industry in which I work in tends to be a very high risk industry with respect to onboarding new talent.

Having 6 different internships, I was able to experience several industries. I have worked in software security, hardware manufacturing, gaming, and analytics as a service. Some of these I have enjoyed, and some of these I have disliked. I really enjoyed working in the gaming industry myself - I found that the people I worked with had a tendency to be on the younger side of the spectrum, and they often had very similar interests to myself. I connected well with coworkers, made more friends, and simply enjoyed the work I was doing more in the gaming industry because of the environment I was working in and people I was working with. My preferences may be vastly different from your preferences, so don’t take what I say as gospel - go out and try different industries yourself.

These internships also allowed me to experience a few additional important factors when choosing a job: what city the company is in, and how large the company is. Some cities, while I have enjoyed a short term 4 month internship there, I would be driven completely insane having to work and live there long term. The same goes for company size. Out of the scenarios I have had an opportunity to experience, I tended to dislike large cities, and prefer companies of medium size (50-200 employees). There was one exception to the large city rule though - for some reason, San Francisco broke the mold for me. Had I not been on these internships to New York City, Ottawa, Kalamazoo (a small-ish town in Michigan), San Jose and San Francisco with companies as large as 400 people and as small as 12, I wouldn’t have known these preferences. I may have chosen a big name company or a barebones startup in a city I disliked and been completely unhappy without knowing why.

Potentially the most important part of these internships for me has been the friends and contacts I have made. I was able to leverage contacts more than once to help me get future internships, and ultimately a full time position where I work now. This was possible only because I did these internships, and did a good job while working there. Old coworkers (and good friends) remembered me and what I was capable of and were able to get me many interviews. In the tech industry, who you know can be much more valuable than how good your resume looks. The friends and contacts I’ve made throughout my internships have opened many doors for me professionally, and I’ve had many amazing experiences and good times that I would’ve otherwise missed out on. For all of that and more, I thank them.

My internships have given me perspective on a great many things - perspective that I believe has given me at a noticeable advantage when comparing me with someone of equal talent and interest who has not had those opportunities. This is why I highly recommend that you do as many internships as you can with as many different companies as you can. Do this even if your program does not offer specific tools to help you find internships the way that uWaterloo does. The experience you’ll get, and things you’ll learn will be very much worth it. And on top of that, most internships these days are paid internships, so you’ll be working towards paying for your post secondary education, and that is never a small price tag.