Next week, on April 13^th, I’ll be speaking at UMBC-Shady Grove’s STEM Symposium. The event is titled, “Internships: Are they worth it? Where Can I Find One?” and it will be held virtually through Webex. I’m super excited to speak on my internship experience and answer questions that participants may have. I’ll be a part of a panel, particularly speaking on my internship last year with the National Weather Service (NWS). The Symposium panel will also have two of my fellow Computer Science students that’ll talk about their own internship experiences.

In light of this, I thought I could talk about my experience with internships in this blog post. First, internships are worth it. The process of finding an internship can be long and grueling, but I’ve learned two key things. One is that you should never sell yourself short, and second is that you have to keep trying. I applied for my NWS internship back in December 2021, after I’d just finished my last semester at Montgomery College. The internship application was a little intimidating as I had to get references and write a personal statement, among other things. But once again, I had to at least try. 

The actual internship was a nice way to keep myself busy over the summer while learning a lot about software engineering. It was great to actually be able to apply what I learned in school, make mistakes, and ask questions outside of class. After I finished the internship last summer, I felt that I had really gained new knowledge. 

I can’t believe it’s coming up on a year since I was an intern at the NWS. I spent a lot of time during the fall and spring semester looking for internships, doing interviews, and completing coding assessments. It was overwhelming at times, but my internship-related stress will be over soon! If you’d like to attend the STEM symposium next week, click here.