I just finished my first internship — since it’s my first ever “real” full-time job, I feel it’s a rite of passage of some sort.
The internship, or co-op work term, lasted 4 months from January to April. My position was titled “Software Developer”, and the company I worked for was [redacted], a small startup in Kitchener.
The Jobmine Process
Like most students at Waterloo, I found my job through Jobmine. The process was intimidating at first: the whole slew of resumes, interviews, jobmine cycles, ranking systems, etc, were a lot to take in. But as I brushed up my resume and tentatively submitted a few cover letters, I began to relax a little.
In the end, I applied to 25 jobs (the limit is 50 applications). Most of these were in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, mainly because I leased a house here and didn’t want to relocate. Out of these 25 positions, 5 of them were cancelled before the interview stage. Out of the 20 jobs remaining, I got interviewed for 10 of them.
The interviews came and went, and in the end, 4 of the 10 companies that interviewed me gave me an offer. So I had the good fortune to take my pick between 4 jobs, any one of which I’d be happy working for. I ended up simply picking the job that looked the most interesting.
The Internship
Edit (May 2018): This section has been removed at the request of my employer.
Conclusion
All in all, my first internship was a positive experience, as I learned a lot and worked with very smart people. I learned how to work my way around a large codebase, also got a taste of what a startup is like. I suppose the only downside was that there was almost no social activity.
This sums up my co-op experience. Starting this week, I will be doing another 4 month study term (2B Computer Science) until August.
Lucky's Notes 