| When I was in grad school, I had one unpaid internship at a flashy startup, and a paid internship at an established company. The latter led to a full-time offer, while the former ended up being such a waste of my time that I left it off my resume for years out of spite. Some features of a high-quality internship imo: - mentorship by smart/experienced people - opportunity to work in different departments or on different projects. There's no need to hyper-specialize early in your career - the company is actually interested in using internships as a pipeline for their full-time staff, not just as cheap labor - yes, paid adequately --- Things that don't matter: - a young workforce. Yes it's good to have a blend, but it's a yellow/red flag to me when everyone at the company is under the age of 30. Some things only come with experience. Plus, you only get to learn from the older generation once, and that's early in your career (when they are late in their careers and about to retire). - remote work. Buy some dress clothes, nice shoes and walk into the office and network. Hallway conversations can turn into friendships that last a long time. In-person meetings, presentations, boring town halls that you can joke about with other interns...that all matters early on, just as much (or maybe more) than just improving your core skillsets. Those connections will grow in value over time, and just make you a more sociable person (which is a lacking skill in engineering in general...) - random perks. You can buy lunch/snacks/whatever with your own budget, that should not be the reason to go to work. |