What I Wish I Knew During My First Internship

Lessons learned over the summers about working in tech, confidence, and how to make the most of an internship

This quote was written on one of the first slides in my Intro to Programming class. I remember it vividly, partially because this quote has had a huge impact on shaping my view of computer science, but also because it wasn’t all that long ago when I first heard it.

I’d never written a line of code prior to college, and although it feels like a lifetime has passed since my freshman year, three years isn’t so long in the grand scheme of things. Yet, in three years, a lot has changed.

I still feel clueless sometimes, but when I compare myself now with where I was just a few years ago, even I can see beyond the imposter syndrome fog that it’s a world of difference. I really didn’t know what I was doing back then — about anything tech-related, but especially about approaching a tech internship. By some miracle, I found a team willing to take a chance on me, and I started my first software engineering (SWE) internship during the summer after my freshman year in 2019. I stumbled through through the whole thing, but I also learned a lot along the way.

The summer after, I was able to work with yet another amazing team at another company in a very different environment. Not only did the two companies differ in size, structure, and culture, but 2020 was also that company’s first time holding its summer internship virtually. Equipped with what I’d learned from interning once before, I was able to navigate and thrive in this unfamiliar, dynamic environment.

Today, I’m a few weeks into my internship at Tableau, feeling more optimistic about my ability to have a great internship than ever before. This is the first summer where I’ve felt confident about diving into the codebase and defending my technical choices. I feel empowered to…

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