Finding an internship for the summer was the hardest part for me. I missed all of the career fairs except for one that only had a single CS internship. I spent a lot of time online applying to various jobs with various companies just trying to find something for the summer. While applying for jobs, I found that a lot of employers wanted a portfolio of some kind. Since I had a long history of web design and various programming work, I created a simple portfolio website with some samples of my favorite websites and applications that I have created. I included my resume in the portfolio as well as a list of my favorite projects that I’ve done for school and work. I think having a portfolio ready is a good idea, and it should be kept up to date, because it can quickly show someone that you are qualified to do the job or show them what you have experience with and the quality of your work. I think your resume is much more important than a portfolio. In technical writing, they teach you how to make a successful resume, which is where I developed mine. Your resume doesn’t have to be lengthy; it just has to sum up your job experience, skills, and your education. If they need to know anything else, it can go on your portfolio or it can wait for the interview.

I received an e-mail from Professor Grove about the Susquehanna Technologies internship in Winchester, VA. Winchester is my hometown, therefore it would be very reasonable for me to work there since I already had a place to stay and I didn’t have to look around for housing or worry about renting an apartment. I called Jen Miller, Director of Operations, and talked to her about the internship and we setup an interview. I sent my resume and my portfolio to her when we got off the phone so she could look over it before the interview incase she wanted to ask me anything about it.

I found out that the job was an internet programming position using C# and ASP.NET. I wasn’t very familiar with ASP.NET, but I was familiar with C# and also web development on UNIX environments using PHP and PERL. I knew that adjusting wouldn’t be easy, but I knew that I could do it. When I was being interviewed, I let them know that I knew a little C# and not a lot of ASP.NET, but that I was a fast learner and would be able to pick it up without a problem. Make sure that you know some background on job info before you go to an interview, remember that C# is said as “C-sharp” and don’t make a mistake of calling it “C-pound” or “C-number.” I fortunately knew what it was before I went to the interview, but some people may not and doing something like that will definitely end the interview before it begins. The day before I went in to interview, I setup all of the software on my computer and played around with it a little bit, just to familiarize myself with it before I went in and talked about it.

After the interview, we setup a training session for the new interns to come in and get a quick overview of what the company doing and how it was doing it. This was very helpful since the company was using MemberPortal and Microsoft Content Management System, which I had no experience with. We were also able to look at some of the source code during this time and familiarize ourselves with how their environments were setup. It was very nice having everything explained to us instead of just trying to figure it out for ourselves, which would have been very hard if we weren’t familiar with it at all.