I start my internship tomorrow

[archcommus]

I just finished my freshman year in EE and I got a paid internship this summer at a software company. I start tomorrow. I made it very clear to them throughout the interview process that I had very little programming experience and that I had only one official programming course in my life, an introductory C++ course last semester. However, they told me I'd be working on actual projects, so I don't really know what to expect.

Any general job advice and/or advice for tackling these projects with very little programming knowledge?

 

[bonkers325]

i was a junior when i interned at a large engineering consulting firm. they dont expect you to do much, only assist in the paperwork portions of the projects. you wont actually be expected to program or anything, as far as i know!

bring your ipod and be prepared to do lots of paperwork

 

[Scarpozzi]

Sleep with the boss and you'll be on full time in a week.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: bonkers325
i was a junior when i interned at a large engineering consulting firm. they dont expect you to do much, only assist in the paperwork portions of the projects. you wont actually be expected to program or anything, as far as i know!

bring your ipod and be prepared to do lots of paperwork

You have 10,399 posts but you're a diamond member? Not elite or lifer? Weird.

They made it very clear they were not hiring me to do busy work and that I would be programming and "self-teaching."

 

[Gibson486]

They know you have no idea what you will be doing. They also will not throw you into something that will mak eyour head spin. However, they also probably expect you to learn quickly. If you atleast know how a pointer works, you should be set. That was me with my first coop. It was over my head, but I learned alot. just go and try your best. They are not expecting you to be their best engineer.


edit:

my first coop was doing firmware.
I had code and make things move on a test printer.
I needed to know computer architecture, but I never took the class.
I barely finished my project (took me the whole 6 months), but I learned alot.

 

[tfinch2]

Don't get caught masturbating in the bathroom.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: Gibson486
They know you have no idea what you will be doing. They also will not throw you into something that will mak eyour head spin. However, they also probably expect you to learn quickly. If you atleast know how a pointer works, you should be set. That was me with my first coop. It was over my head, but I learned alot. just go and try your best. They are not expecting you to be their best engineer.

Well I know how a pointer works at least.

 

[Baked]

Steal all the high end equipment and sell them on eBay. If anybody asks, blame the janitor.

 

[ngvepforever2]

Originally posted by: archcommus
I just finished my freshman year in EE and I got a paid internship this summer at a software company. I start tomorrow. I made it very clear to them throughout the interview process that I had very little programming experience and that I had only one official programming course in my life, an introductory C++ course last semester. However, they told me I'd be working on actual projects, so I don't really know what to expect.

Any general job advice and/or advice for tackling these projects with very little programming knowledge?

If it's anything like mine, your supervisor will give you 5 programming books and tell you to "give it a look" by which he really meant learn it as fast as you can. Luckly for me, I had experience in working in big projects. The key though is to know that you are there to learn as much as you can while providing your best efforts to your company. Therefore if you have any doubts in what you do, ask questions to the people who know. Be punctual, be presentable, be courteous and learn how to deal with clients. I doubt he'll make you write code or expect you to hit the ground running especially since it's your first internship and you have zero coding experience. If he indeed does that, you'll be in for a summer that's going to bring you more frustration than experience. There are things that you should know especially how the software engineering process works.

Good luck

ng

 

[alimoalem]

more likely than not, you'll get bored within a month. be on time, be professional, and make yourself and the company look good. you may want to come back for a job. just know you're there to learn and not a whole lot is expected of you (as a previous poster mentioned)

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: ngvepforever2

Originally posted by: archcommus
I just finished my freshman year in EE and I got a paid internship this summer at a software company. I start tomorrow. I made it very clear to them throughout the interview process that I had very little programming experience and that I had only one official programming course in my life, an introductory C++ course last semester. However, they told me I'd be working on actual projects, so I don't really know what to expect.

Any general job advice and/or advice for tackling these projects with very little programming knowledge?

If it's anything like mine, your supervisor will give you 5 programming books and tell you to "give it a look" by which he really meant learn it as fast as you can. Luckly for me, I had experience in working in big projects. The key though is to know that you are there to learn as much as you can while providing your best efforts to your company. Therefore if you have any doubts in what you do, ask questions to the people who know. Be punctual, be presentable, be courteous and learn how to deal with clients. I doubt he'll make you write code or expect you to hit the ground running especially since it's your first internship and you have zero coding experience. If he indeed does that, you'll be in for a summer that's going to bring you more frustration than experience. There are things that you should know especially how the software engineering process works.

Good luck

ng

I also expect a similar "learn this as fast as you can" approach, since I know I'll have to learn a lot to be able to really contribute, plus he said I'd be self-teaching. What they'll expect of me the first day I'm not quite sure. I suppose if I'm working on something that I feel particularly behind on, I could always work on it at home? I'm not sure.

 

[ngvepforever2]

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: ngvepforever2

Originally posted by: archcommus
I just finished my freshman year in EE and I got a paid internship this summer at a software company. I start tomorrow. I made it very clear to them throughout the interview process that I had very little programming experience and that I had only one official programming course in my life, an introductory C++ course last semester. However, they told me I'd be working on actual projects, so I don't really know what to expect.

Any general job advice and/or advice for tackling these projects with very little programming knowledge?

If it's anything like mine, your supervisor will give you 5 programming books and tell you to "give it a look" by which he really meant learn it as fast as you can. Luckly for me, I had experience in working in big projects. The key though is to know that you are there to learn as much as you can while providing your best efforts to your company. Therefore if you have any doubts in what you do, ask questions to the people who know. Be punctual, be presentable, be courteous and learn how to deal with clients. I doubt he'll make you write code or expect you to hit the ground running especially since it's your first internship and you have zero coding experience. If he indeed does that, you'll be in for a summer that's going to bring you more frustration than experience. There are things that you should know especially how the software engineering process works.

Good luck

ng

I also expect a similar "learn this as fast as you can" approach, since I know I'll have to learn a lot to be able to really contribute, plus he said I'd be self-teaching. What they'll expect of me the first day I'm not quite sure. I suppose if I'm working on something that I feel particularly behind on, I could always work on it at home? I'm not sure.

If you don't have the basics (I don't think one semester of programming classes cover the basics) then I don't believe they'll let you do any self-teching, but if they make you to do it I suppose it should be a pretty low level project you'll be working on and nothing big that would backfire on them in case you mess up. Just be prepared to learn a lot, work hard but keep your work where it belongs and don't take it home with you unless it is really necessary (which I don't think it will be since it's your first internship).

Regards

ng

 

[archcommus]

Well, I started today. It went well. They have me working on a project that will help them print out better monthly reports from last month's invoices. He asked if I had any experience with SQL or databases and I said no. So he gave me three textbooks to read from and a sheet outlining the project and basically let me go. I read for a few hours and then messed around for a few hours and got an okay amount of work done. I have all the basic commands down. Tomorrow I have to convert ID numbers into the words and phrases they represent by joining a bunch of tables and I'm not quite sure how to do that yet.

The nice part is, I can come whenever I'd like, and take as long of a lunch as I like, as long as I get eight hours in for the day.

 

[Gibson486]

cool.....i hope you like it. I have never coded in SQL, but good luck.

 

[EightySix Four]

Oh and, don't under any circumstances, take an offer to go camping with a female intern. You will only get punched in the face and suck at life.

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: archcommus
Well, I started today. It went well. They have me working on a project that will help them print out better monthly reports from last month's invoices. He asked if I had any experience with SQL or databases and I said no. So he gave me three textbooks to read from and a sheet outlining the project and basically let me go. I read for a few hours and then messed around for a few hours and got an okay amount of work done. I have all the basic commands down. Tomorrow I have to convert ID numbers into the words and phrases they represent by joining a bunch of tables and I'm not quite sure how to do that yet.

The nice part is, I can come whenever I'd like, and take as long of a lunch as I like, as long as I get eight hours in for the day.

It's not hard. Just make sure your dataset is normalized as much as possible or you'll be beating yourself up later.

 

[helpme]

select user from work where lazy equal 'true'

Err heh, in all seriousness, talk to as many of the engineers you can about random job/life stuff. You'll get a better idea of what you might want to do when you graduate (where/who to work for, how to balance life and work, etc).

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: archcommus
Well, I started today. It went well. They have me working on a project that will help them print out better monthly reports from last month's invoices. He asked if I had any experience with SQL or databases and I said no. So he gave me three textbooks to read from and a sheet outlining the project and basically let me go. I read for a few hours and then messed around for a few hours and got an okay amount of work done. I have all the basic commands down. Tomorrow I have to convert ID numbers into the words and phrases they represent by joining a bunch of tables and I'm not quite sure how to do that yet.

The nice part is, I can come whenever I'd like, and take as long of a lunch as I like, as long as I get eight hours in for the day.

It's not hard. Just make sure your dataset is normalized as much as possible or you'll be beating yourself up later.

Unfortunately I don't have much control over that. The database is all of their archived invoices for the past four years or so, and I am querying one month of that data in particular. I can't alter the database itself.

But can you briefly explain how the concept of joining will let me accomplish this? Right now I've already selected all of my columns from the right tables with the proper when clauses established, but half of them are "record ID" numbers and they need to become words and titles. What the numbers represent are off in other tables somewhere.