Myself and a few others are currently working on a project that will be a great benefit to college FIRSTers and high school seniors.
One thing that was brought up at a meeting I attended this weekend were FIRST-related internships. I know Rolls-Royce offers some kinds (Chris Fultz, you may want to elaborate on this).
Basically, what I’m looking for are companies that offer apprenticeships or internships that are
a) directly related to FIRST, or
b) are known to be more apt to hire FIRSTers, or
c) sponsor certain teams and let their members have internships/apprenticeships
or anything of this nature.
They where Team 5’s former sponsor but have taken on MANY students from the FIRST robotics team.
I can give you specific team contacts if you want. On the page it has their general contact - but I don’t want to put specifics just out to grab. Feel free to PM or IM me.
NYC Companies that sponsors FIRST teams in NYC (like the one I work for) hires both high school and college student interns for the summer and full-time. Since these companies sponsored and mentor a pool of young talents, it is only natural to select candidates from these teams.
FIRST is a great “net” for catching engineering talent. A FIRST’er performance and work ethics is an excellent indication of the future career performancein any discipline. It’s a win-win situation.
A few of the notable NYC companies are: Verizon, Consolidated Edison, Keyspan, SIAC.
FESTO hires FIRST high school and college interns, generally from the FIRST team (or alumni of the team) they sponsor.
Northrop Grumman has both high school and college internships and co-ops. On Long Island we have several school/business relationships inter-mixed with the FIRST teams we are trying to encourage.
P.S. [font=Verdana]It has worked both ways in that NGC has also established partnerships/mentorships with several of the local high schools, then leveraged that partnership to convince them to start FIRST teams. Which came FIRST, the chicken or the egg? Of course that obligates NGC to provide volunteer mentors, so we’re fullfilling our part of the bargain by advertising and running new mentor luncheons/workshops.[/font]
I’ve been mulling this idea over for quote awhile and I’m glad someone finally decided to run with it. It’d be a good idea to get a list of contact people who either are hiring managers or can forward them to hiring managers and are willing to give a bit of precidence to FIRST students. Finding a coop isn’t an easy thing (although it’s getting betters as the economy improves) and every little bit helps.
Textron Systems is a sponsor of the robotics team at Northeastern University. Textron recruits most of their co-ops out of Northeastern.
I don’t go to NU, I go to Wentworth. So my chances of getting a co-op with Textron Systems wasn’t all that great. However, my participation on the Northeastern robotics team gave me a strong reccomendation by the lead engineer on the team. This semester I’m co-oping in a software engineering group in the Future Combat Systems division at Textron Systems
I have been trying to work on something similar down here in GA. It however has not taken off. There are few companies down here that I know of that sponsor teams and would look highly at a FIRST candidate. Some of these are DVT Sensors, Scientific Atlanta, Lockeed Martin, Kimberly Clark. Since FIRST is GA is still relatively young no FIRST internships, as far as I know, have ever been established.
If this project took off I am pretty sure I could make a strong case for getting these local companies on board. They would most likely want to provide these opportunities to local students/teams. Please keep me informed of this projects progress. Good luck.
I personally got my internship last summer (the summer after my senior year in high school) at BAE Systems in Nashua, NH as a result of my participation on my FIRST team. I know the company hires several students (juniors and seniors) from both teams 151 and 166 each year.
Another note: I met other interns from various other FIRST teams, although these students were juniors in college. I don’t know if FIRST was a factor in them being hired or not, since the company hires many college interns.
When I interview students for positions, I will weigh their FIRST experience as equivalent to a professional work experience. I will ask them about their accomplishments with their team. I also ask about their experience and the positions they held on the team.
Most students I’ve seen do not have professional experiences and that’s why FIRST students appear to have preferential treatment over other students with better academics.
(Some have accused me of giving preferential treatments!) But I prefer hard workers and good thinkers over just good grades.
PS- when I was young (many, many years ago. lOl) I Co-op’ed with the Department of Energy- National Bureau of Standards. It was the best experience I ever had. I also had offers from NOAA at Boulder, CO. and the FAA at NYC Kennedy Int’l Airport. I was lucky.
UTC likes FIRST Students: Buzz #175 mentors helped me with these two positions:
Hamilton Sundstrand Engine Systems - Joint Strike Fighter, Pratt&Whitney Jet Engine Electronic Controls, Project Group
Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems Intl - NASA Space Suit, Project Group
Northeastern Co-op advisors already had contacts at these companies, but FIRST helped a lot in my interviews & job offers:
DEKA - iBOT QA
(yea, I think it’s one of Dean Kamen’s preferences to have FIRST students work at his company… it certainly helped)
Next Year? Well, I’m addicted aerospace, so NASA is first on my list:
Kennedy Space Center seems promising (crossing fingers :eek: )
-erin
p.s. I was talking to the manager who hired me for HSSSI yesterday, he commented about co-op: “if I see two resumes with the same kind of acedemic performance, one has related work experience and one does not, the offer usually always goes to the candidate with related experience.”
FIRST is that ‘related experience’ when you’re starting to look for internships, so consider yourself a step ahead. I’d say… keep doing internships but it’ll be a gradual process. However, by the time college is over (four internships maybe?), you’ll have a pretty impressive resume.
