Lessons from my Engineering Internship (Summer '25)
Worked at a semiconductor company in Dallas, TX
I didn’t enjoy my internship this summer: This piece is my attempt to knot the resultant threads that have been spinning in my head since its completion.
Ensure you have a clear grasp of project expectations and milestones: Simply, the start of the internship is the best time to ask questions and get clarity.
Find a senior engineer, who is not your supervisor, to exchange ideas and timelines with: You can never have too many people advocating for you.
Compare your project and internship structure with other interns: You’d be surprised how much more or less thorough the scaffolding for interns is across different teams.
Attend open calls and town halls with senior executives and ask questions: Many engineers seem to attend town halls just to be in close proximity with these executives. If you have particular questions about business decisions or trajectories, you immediately stand out.
If possible, live with someone else who is interning at the same company: It helps to be able to carpool or discuss the day’s trivialities with someone who is familiar with the context.
Ask other team members (privately) about their time in team and expectations from the manager: Some managers are too ‘polite’ to state their standards but will hold you to them.
Volunteer to take notes in meetings and share with the team afterwards: This is especially useful if you have no idea what’s going on in the meeting. Writing will leave you with some semblance for the topic and something to follow up after.
It’s (often) safe to assume that you don’t know anything: There are often more efficient ways to solve problems – even those you’re familiar with.
Find the most eager teacher in your team and book sessions with them to clarify concepts: Some engineers just LOVE to explain stuff. Being in close proximity with such people is probably the most exciting part of any internship.
Start as early as possible: I started my internship three weeks after most of my cohort and was playing catch-up across the rest of the allotted time.
Wrote this is one sitting ~24 minutes as part of this one-shot essay experiment I am doing.
You expressed your experience so clearly, and there’s a lot others can learn from what you shared.
Glad you were able to synthesize ur thoughts well for it my friend!