Computer Science Internship

[Getting the Job] [About the Job] [Daily Work Log] [Career Advice] [Internship Value]

Section 1.0 - Getting the Job

When looking for my internship I had two important factors to consider – budget and distance.  I didn’t have any “connections” in the Northern Virginia /Washington D.C. area where most CS internships take place.  Driving to these locations or finding temporary housing proved to be too expensive.  But I was determined to not stop there. I did have a place to stay in Harrisonburg for the summer as well as Roanoke.  So I narrowed down the cities that were in driving distance of my two houses and began hunting for an internship. 

While searching for an internship I was limited only by my imagination.  I first started out by searching the Internet.  To get into the “job finding mood” I decided to go to some corporate company websites that I would love to work for and just see what they offer.  Even though the position was out of my league it still gave me hope and the desire to begin searching.  Once I had navigated a few good websites and reality set back in, I began searching on websites like www.hotjobs.com and www.monster.com.  Each day before my Monday-Wednesday night class I continued to search these sites for local internship postings.  These sites are good for finding internships, but turned up nothing for the locations I had to choose from.  I also periodically checked the classifieds for each city that were in driving distance of my two housing locations. 

By mid semester I was getting worried that I would not find an internship so I decided to expand my resources once again and went to the Yellow Pages.  I checked a few IT company websites that were listed and made a few phone calls.  I had a few good conversations with IT managers and was even offered an internship with a communications company.  But I felt that this internship was not exactly what I was looking for. 

Time was running out and I was getting close to giving up on finding an internship.  At the time I was working part-time with the JMU Police Department as a Police Cadet. I thought to myself why not inquire into more about the computer network and database management that goes on at the police department.  I found out that the police department had an IT manager so I emailed him to set up an appointment with him to talk about a potential internship over the summer.  We met in person and he explained to me that he had a few projects over the summer that included database software and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that would involve multi-jurisdictions in the Harrisonburg /Rockingham County areas.  He also explained that new workstations were being installed and needed configuration for the internal JMU Police Department network.  What began as an information session turned into a full internship interview.  After we finished our meeting he told me that he would contact me and let me know if the internship would work out.  I received an email a few days later explaining that the internship could take place and to show up for work Monday morning at 8a.m. 

Finding an internship was not difficult, but finding the right internship for myself proved to be a challenge. Here are a few tips that I would like to pass on about landing internships. 

Have a credible email account.

Use your official JMU email account. It provides your last name, initials, and the school name which is more likely to get a response than a nick named email account.

Have a copy of your résumé in both a word processor format and in a plain text format.

I found that many IT managers don’t like to fool with paper or word processors. Instead they asked for my résumé in plain text format attached to an email.  Also when going in for a live interview always carry two copies of your résumé in hand just incase more than one person is interviewing you. 

Honesty

Always tell the truth about what you know and always provide as much information as you can.  It only hurts your integrity to stretch the truth.

Section 2.0  - About the Job

Because my internship was with a police department, much of the information is confidential.  I can talk about the systems that I used to hold the data and the way I went about it, but I cannot talk about any of the data that I saw while working with the databases. To be considered officially for the internship I had to have an extensive background check done as well as fingerprinted for the FBI.  These checks, of course, came back negative.

My internship was with the James Madison University Police Department, specifically the Information Technology and Support Services division.  The department is located in Harrisonburg on South Main Street.  The Information Technology and Support Services department consists of 4 employees.  My immediate boss was the IT/Support Services Manager.  The police department is a public service that has to have much of its information available to the public at all times.  The work environment stayed busy because of the new software and hardware upgrades taking place throughout the IT department. My basic workweek consisted of 9am – 5pm Monday thru Friday.  I always had weekends and holidays off.

I had many goals throughout the internship to complete. The main goals were set up front and included administering and configuring inVize document imaging database software to be used by multi-jurisdictions, train in and develop maps using ArcGIS geo-coding software, and expanding the DaPro IBR database to include a mug shot database.  Other projects that took place on a daily basis were departmental website maintenance and configuring new workstations for the internal network. 

My first day of work involved a training session.  The trainer from inVize taught two sessions on the software. The first was an overview and how to use to the system and the second was on administration of the system.  Because I would be assisting in administrating and configuring the database for the paperless office, I attended both training sessions.  By the end of the week we were ready to go live with the system and begin using the software.  But before the data entry side could be used we had to develop the virtual filing cabinets and the rights of the users. Once this was completed I was on my way to developing the database and making it accessible based on our plan. 

Because data entry needed to be fast as possible for the inVize system I was given the task to write Perl script the convert a quickly typed case number, check it for errors and then add the necessary header and dashes to store it with consistency in the database.  The only problem I had with this was that I had no prior experience with Perl. I then had to research the Perl language and understand the syntax before I could write the code. 

The Daily Incident website consists of a specific HTML style sheet that has to be consistent. Although not part of my initial goals, I decided to use my Java programming background and develop a program that accepted plain text as input and outputted the proper HTML consistent with the website.  The program was a success and proved to speed up the data entry time.  The Daily Incident Log was always a high priority because it must always be available if someone requests a copy.

The next software package that I received extensive training on was the ArcGIS software.  ArcGIS is a software suite that allows you to make maps and plot data using GPS coordinates or geo-coded maps. I completed both basic and advanced classes on ArcGIS map developing. The two training sessions equaled over 40 hours.  ArcGIS will be used for plotting crime and other police dispatched areas. The system will eventually be used for real time dispatching.

Section 3.0 - Daily Work Log

The following is an example of my daily log. 

Daily Log Week 2   - Tuesday 5.27.2003

• Clocked in at 9am.  Checked mailbox and email for any special announcements.
• Sat down with Support Services manager to develop virtual cabinet system and rights and privileges of various users of the inVize system.
• Lunch 12:30-1:00
• Determined that cabinets needed to be reworked in order to fit needs of department.
• Reworked and debugged all cabinets to insure that information could be added and removed from the database.
• Got database working successfully.
• Developed different user levels and rights to allow data entry clerk to begin imaging documents.
• Clocked out at 5pm.

Section 4.0 – Career Advice for Current CS Students.

In General all of my CS classes helped me with my internship. The classes in the CS department that I have benefited from the most are CS345 CS139-239 and CS 460.  A non-CS class that has helped tremendously is TSC210.

CS345 has helped with the organization of teamwork in an IT environment. The class helped me organize my goals as well as devise a plan to stick to during the internship.

CS139-239 really taught me to think like a programmer. Having these skills I was able to take a new scripting language, (Perl), that I had no experience in and learn the basic fundamentals to complete the task at hand.

CS460 provided a basic understanding of networking and provided me with the knowledge to configure the workstations flawlessly.

TSC210 was a great refresher writing class with a technical side. A lot of my communication to my supervisor was in the form of email.  Also when I completed a task I had to write up a description of what I did.  This class was a true asset for writing technical documentation.

The best advice I can offer is to get as much hands-on training as possible and learn something about every aspect of computers.  For example, if you only know Microsoft Windows Operating System, grab a book on different operating systems, allocate hard drive space, and install some new ones. You will be surprised what you learn.  I now have experience using Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. Another way to get hands-on training is to find a group of students to work with and enroll in an independent study in a networking lab.

Section 5.0 – Internship Value

My internship with the JMU Police Department proved to be a true asset. I had an opportunity to learn new aspects of computers as well as use my current knowledge to gain experience working in the real world.  I have a new understanding of how much people rely on computers and the people who maintain them and keep the information systems up and running. Also, the internship has opened opportunities for me during the upcoming school year. Because the ArcGIS system is an ongoing project I will stay on as an employee at the police department to continue to work with the project as well as continuing to update daily log website and provide support for the inVize system.

JMU Public Safety Logo   

Software Company Logos

Certificates received during internship