Book smart but not on the job smart: Struggling on my first internship, any advice?

[asdfghjkl]

I'm a rising junior CS Major at UC Berkeley and this is my first summer internship. I'm currently doing pretty well in school with a 3.6 gpa so far. Unfortunately, while I maybe book smart, I'm struggling this first few weeks of this internship. This stems mainly due to the fact that it's hard for me to pick up new tasks and adjust to new technologies. When I finally get how something works, I can complete the task w/o any problem, but for me, I find that doing any new task takes an inordinate amount of time for me to adjust. Whether it may be working with a new set of code, or learning a new set of technology (IDEs, frameworks etc) and doing a small project in them, I feel like my manager is definitely not satisfied with how slow and inefficient I am at getting stuff done. The other intern on my team, who's in the same position as me (rising junior CS, first internship as well) seems to be adjusting a lot more smoothly than I am into the work. Basically I feel like a total idiot during much of the time I'm at work. In school, I do typically spend a somewhat longer amount of time than the average classmate finishing my CS projects, for the same reasons: It's very difficult for me to get started. That hasn't affected me grade wise or anything, so I never really cared about that weakness when I was in school. Does anyone else have any similar experience of struggling to adjust to the workplace as a STEM major, and if so, any tips on how to overcome these weaknesses. Thanks!

 

[disappoint]

Practice at home with the same IDE they have at work?

For all you know that's what the other intern who seems to be adjusting more smoothly is doing.

 

[mikeford]

Welcome to the real world. Take the manual home and study them a few nights.

 

[Ns1]

You're not a special snowflake "rising junior CS major"

 

[xSauronx]

I'm a rising junior CS Major at UC Berkeley and this is my first summer internship. I'm currently doing pretty well in school with a 3.6 gpa so far. Unfortunately, while I maybe book smart, I'm struggling this first few weeks of this internship. This stems mainly due to the fact that it's hard for me to pick up new tasks and adjust to new technologies.

you are a CS major that has a hard time adjusting to new technologies?


1 - if you are already making excuses about how hard it is to get into new technologies...i think you picked the wrong major.
2 - if you think im wrong then work your ass off at work and at home to get up to speed. this is not likely to get easier anytime soon.

life is what you make it, and if you are making excuses about your chosen field as an intern--instead of busting your ass working to keep up--you are going to have a hard damn time as life goes on.

 

[Hacp]

Looking into code that you have never seen before is going to be a regular part of your job if you are going to be developing software in the future. I would suggest you practice and get good at it or find another field.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

You didn't choose the right major if you have a hard time adjusting to new technologies, you have to learn a new one every other month these days

 

[NuclearNed]

I don't know you personally, but over the years I've seen interns come & go. Many of them have the same issues, which the following advice addresses:

1. get to work early
2. leave work late
3. minimize your "social/screw around/do nothing/45 minute bathroom break" time
4. quit making excuses
5. ask lots of questions
6. study the documentation

 

[mvbighead]

Whatever it is you are struggling with at work, take it home and work on it if you can. If you can't, replicate it as best you can at home and work on it until you get it.

I find that you never learn something until you actually dedicate time to do so. If things are getting in the way, move them out of the way. I had a buddy that worked his ass off to get a CCNA. He may not have 'gotten' it at first, but he dedicated time to into until he knew he could pass the test.

It takes time to learn something. It takes even more time to become proficient with it.

 

[JEDI]

You're not a special snowflake "rising junior CS major"

yeah.. thought the same.. rising junior cs major.
rising to be avg?

oh.. and great troll 1st post OP

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I understand where the OP is coming from.

Book smart a lot of time stems from an OCD desire to get everything right. To get everything perfect. The problem? That's not how it works in the real world for top level jobs. Depending on the job, they want you to be able to take it and run.

It's almost like you have to throw away the desire to do things perfect and just kind of "wing it" until you get it down solid. Don't take 45 minutes to read the manual on the job. Read the manual at home while eating dinner.

My problem? I have a wife that takes all my time, so finding free time at home is... well... not as easy as it seems

 

[rudeguy]

can anyone explain to me WTF a "rising junior" is?

 

[jaha2000]

I don't know you personally, but over the years I've seen interns come & go. Many of them have the same issues, which the following advice addresses:

1. get to work early
2. leave work late
3. minimize your "social/screw around/do nothing/45 minute bathroom break" time
4. quit making excuses
5. ask lots of questions
6. study the documentation

See above...
I worked for a small company and got to hire an intern after being out of school for 8 years. Let me tell you my impression of current college grads.
1. They feel entitled to everything.
2. It appears that facebook and texting on the smart phone for 4 hours a day is ok, he demanded I gave him the password for the WIFI because his phone did not work in the office he had. I asked him why he needed it as he had a computer. His response, "facebook is blocked on it". No shit dumbass.
3. I had 2 people show up with parents to the interview and demanded they sit in the room with me while I interviewed their kid.. Ummm, NO. That will not be happening..
4. See line 1
5. See line 1
6. I had one kid answer a text during the interview.. I stopped what I was doing, told him the interview was over and asked him to leave.

I hate to say this, but my impression is that the current crop is not the "go getter" type.

 

[Rakehellion]

can anyone explain to me WTF a "rising junior" is?

With hard work and determination, he'll be a senior one day. Just you wait!

 

[asdfghjkl]

yeah.. thought the same.. rising junior cs major.
rising to be avg?

oh.. and great troll 1st post OP

What the fuck are you talking about??????? What's so wrong with the phrase rising junior, it's meant to be a completely neutral term that describes the fact that I'm going to be a third year. Do you think I'm bragging about it or something?????????? I never implied that I'm some "special snowflake", I'm just like the millions of others who will be juniors doing an internship this summer and describing myself like that

And HOW THE HELL IS THIS A TROLL POST????

With that venting aside, is there some connotation to the phrase "rising junior" that I'm not aware of... I seriously didn't mean to be anything other than a shorthand and neutral way to describe myself

 

[purbeast0]

as someone who was a CS major, and had no internships, i can tell you that i had the same transition problems when i had my first job out of school.

all of the stuff i did in school, for the most part, was all command line stuff. all input and output came from the command line, other than in my openGL and matlab courses.

but my first job out of school was for a company that makes CAD software, so it had A LOT of visual stuff that i simply was not used to. i really had no concepts of "views" before since it was all text based on consoles.

that said, what you are experiencing is normal, and your company KNOWS that is normal, so don't sweat it. they don't expect interns to come in and to be boy genius. they expect the intern to come in and do shit in 2 weeks that normal employees could do in 2 hours, but it's not as important to the normal employees because they have other pressing stuff to work on.

the point of internships is to help teach people who are going to be in the future workforce how the real world works. it also helps them recruit new talent fresh from school. so don't think that they are doing you a favor by hiring you as an intern, they are also doing it to help the company image.

 

[rudeguy]

What the fuck are you talking about??????? What's so wrong with the phrase rising junior, it's meant to be a completely neutral term that describes the fact that I'm going to be a third year. Do you think I'm bragging about it or something?????????? I never implied that I'm some "special snowflake", I'm just like the millions of others who will be junior doing an internship this summer and describing myself like that

And HOW THE HELL IS THIS A TROLL POST???? I'm seriously struggling and asking for advice AND ITS SEEMS LIKE YOURE FUCKING MOCKING ME!!!!!

if you can't take that small amount of criticism, you will never succeed. You have no social skills and even less ability to learn. Good luck teaching whatever it is you will teach at community college.

 

[Rakehellion]

ITS SEEMS LIKE YOURE FUCKING MOCKING ME!!!!!

No way.

 

[purbeast0]

You didn't choose the right major if you have a hard time adjusting to new technologies, you have to learn a new one every other month these days

this is about as retarded a statement as one can say and completely false.

as someone who's been in the industry for over a decade, i never really learned how to pick up new technologies until i was 5 years in the industry, simply because i didnt HAVE to. the company i worked for used C++ and that was about it. they didn't use any external stuff, so i simply never had to learn anything else.

it was when i left that company and went to a place that had a server based java application i started to learn "how" to pick up new technologies, because i had to learn java, sql, hibernate, and other stuff all at once.

 

[asdfghjkl]

if you can't take that small amount of criticism, you will never succeed. You have no social skills and even less ability to learn. Good luck teaching whatever it is you will teach at community college.

Ok I'm sorry that I vented out. But seriously, is there something wrong with the term "rising junior"? I never thought the term is antyhing other than just a short hand way to describe "finished sophomore year, entering junior year" and has a completely neutral connotation.

 

[rudeguy]

Ok I'm sorry that I vented out. But seriously, is there something wrong with the term "rising junior"?

it sounds like you are being grandiose and arrogant.

My honest advice to you: get an internship somewhere. Join some Linkedin groups that are running projects you are interested in. Get some experience at failing and learning from your failures.

Real life is much more about failing than succeeding. Most of the things I work on fail multiple times before I get them right. I learn so much more from failure than I do in success. Once you get some humility in you and get over your fear of failing, you will be fine.

 

[DougK62]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the term "rising junior". It's a standard and very widely used term in higher education to describe a student who has finished their sophomore year and will be a junior for the next semester. So the person is "rising" to the Junior year of courses/status. The people poking fun at it are just clueless.

Others have great suggestions to help with your situation. It's a common phenomenon when someone gets to the "real world" for the first time. You've identified your struggle and want to fix it, which is half the battle. Good luck.

 

[boomerang]

Ok I'm sorry that I vented out. But seriously, is there something wrong with the term "rising junior"? I never thought the term is antyhing other than just a short hand way to describe "finished sophomore year, entering junior year" and has a completely neutral connotation.

The inference is that you feel you're on the fast track. That's how I interpret it.

Newcomers always get a hard time here. It's a rite of passage. Those that endure, remain. That sounds like some kind of contrived BS, but that's pretty much how it works.

I ain't sayin' it's right, I ain't sayin' it's wrong. It just is.

Edit: I see the poster above me cleared up the confusion. See, you already know something most of the rest of us didn't! Gotta like that!

 

[rudeguy]

The inference is that you feel you're on the fast track. That's how I interpret it.

Newcomers always get a hard time here. It's a rite of passage. Those that endure, remain. That sounds like some kind of contrived BS, but that's pretty much how it works.

I ain't sayin' it's right, I ain't sayin' it's wrong. It just is.

Old timers get a hard time here too.

Some pay extra for that....

 

[repoman0]

Ok I'm sorry that I vented out. But seriously, is there something wrong with the term "rising junior"? I never thought the term is antyhing other than just a short hand way to describe "finished sophomore year, entering junior year" and has a completely neutral connotation.

You are correct, but you are surrounded by ATOT, a bunch of antisocial neckbeards who only live to scrutinize other posters and latch on to whatever they possibly can find to criticize :ninja: