Paid FIRST alum summer internships

[smurfgirl]

Lonnie,

Thanks for your reply. It sounds like a great opportunity, and I'd like to help it grow.

As for why you haven't heard more interest yet, I have two ideas:

1) This is not the best time of year to recruit for summer internships - most companies have already hired their summer interns for this summer, and those interns have already started, and most companies have not yet started recruiting for next summer.

2) Large companies have an internal process that must be followed to recruit and hire anyone. They may also have concerns about not paying their interns directly. (That might change if they had detailed information from the DOE about this program.)

I will share this with my contacts at smaller companies who might be interested.

[lovelj]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

Lonnie,

Thanks for your reply. It sounds like a great opportunity, and I'd like to help it grow.

As for why you haven't heard more interest yet, I have two ideas:

1) This is not the best time of year to recruit for summer internships - most companies have already hired their summer interns for this summer, and those interns have already started, and most companies have not yet started recruiting for next summer.

2) Large companies have an internal process that must be followed to recruit and hire anyone. They may also have concerns about not paying their interns directly. (That might change if they had detailed information from the DOE about this program.)

I will share this with my contacts at smaller companies who might be interested.

We are on the same page. My intention was to pilot this next summer. I typically hire 30 students every summer to work in our lab and make my selections in March. But when I can pay others nationally for free... That's enticing.

Thanks for the help.

Lonnie

[lovelj]

Summer internship program is active. See link below. This is a pilot for what we (FIRST team 3824) hope to be a standard program to all FIRST alumni looking for summer internship opportunities.

http://orise.orau.gov/roboticsinternship/

Lonnie

[DampRobot]

I was one of those who applied for (and was accepted to) the SpaceX internship program last year. It's a super cool program and directly recruits FRC alums (right out of high school too!). I didn't see anything about it on CD this year, but it could make a return in future years.

Also, if you're looking to work in a field related to FRC stuff (EE, ME, CS, some startup related stuff, math, physics, etc.) your experience on an FRC team will definitely help you get a position. This summer, I'm working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) on Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS), a project looking for small phonon and charge signals in Ge and Si crystals at 60 mK in order to look for WIMP dark matter. FRC experience definitely made me a more attractive student for my advisor, and has helped me a ton on the project so far.

There's lots of cool positions out there, and while potential employers and professors may not be looking for FRC and FIRST kids per se, the skills you learn in FRC will serve you very well when looking for and performing well at a job.

[Jay O'Donnell]

For those in the New Hampshire Area, be sure to apply for the FIRST internship with BAE systems in Nashua. I'm currently an intern and I love it! Feel free to PM me with any questions.