[partisan]

Volunteer for challenging work that is not slated for you, when possible.

Keep an open mind and be humble when viewing the work of your more experienced colleagues. You will see things that will seem downright silly to you, but you have to consider that there was probably a very good reason for why something was done the way it was.

[lobe]

Sometimes not even challenging work, but sometimes menial work that is below others.

Every internship I have had, I was with a team that tried to give me the best experience I could, and never gave me boring or menial tasks just because I was the intern. In fact they actively avoided doing so and did these things themselves.

On my first internship there was a task that came in. As part of a security audit, we had to verify that all ssh keys that had access to sensitive infrastructure. That had to be done by hand, by running around and finding these people and checking their keys manually, which was nearly a days work. I volunteered to do it, as really that's the sort of stuff that I should be doing as it would be wasteful for the others to be spending their time on it.

Things like that got me a lot of respect. As an intern, you need to make the lives of those you work with easier. If this means occasionally taking some menial work or writing scripts to automate their tasks.

[PatZawa]

When taking on a challenging task like this, what is a good way to ask questions of your colleagues without seeming annoying?

[partisan]

You might find that with the right approach, people will be glad to help you, especially if you are taking work off of their overloaded plates. Alternately, you might also find that there are some grumpy people who you will be forced to work with or get answers from in order for you to succeed.

My strategy is to ask informed questions. Do your best to understand the problem, the motivations, the context, and the available solutions before you start asking questions. Group all of your questions together as best you can and ask them at the same time. Asking questions randomly and repeatedly will probably annoy someone who is trying to concentrate on a task. You might even find that you think of the answers while waiting for the right time to ask.

If it is clear that you are giving it your all, and not wasting their time, then people will be much more inclined to help you.

Some examples:

Bad question: How do I do {X}?

Good question: I've learned how to do {X}, but should I instead do {Y}?

Bad question: Have you seen {X feature, code, etc}? Why would someone do something so dumb?

Good question: I understand what {X} is doing, but it's not clear to me why we did it that way. Is there a requirement that I am missing?