<p>So I'm a freshman computer science major and I was wondering if it would be possible to get internships as a freshman? By the end of this year I should of finished at least one of my core cs classes (or two) depending on what my advisor suggests. We're learning Python in my intro class and I'm hoping to pick up Javascript and make web apps on my own. </p>
<p>The problem is that I applied last year to many programs for incoming freshman (Google, NSA, etc.) and was rejected by all of them. I thought I would at least have a good chance of getting one because I'm an african-american woman who is very interested in software development, but I guess it wasn't meant to be :/</p>
<p>Is it even worth trying to apply for a summer internship? I don't want to fill out applications and get rejected again. Or I was thinking that maybe I could suffer through my retail job at home and maybe learn Objective-C and Cocoa and make an iPhone app or learn some new programming skill?</p>
<p>Your chances are better between college frosh and soph years than between high school senior and college frosh years, but there are no guarantees.</p>
<p>Have you wrote any applications yourself? Taken part in open source projects or e.g. Google Summer of Code?</p>
<p>If not, then I’d recommend starting from those to have something to show to potential employers. It’s not about the tools you’ve learned or the courses you’ve taken, but whether you’ve written your own programs that may have gotten even some public exposure or whether you have taken part in open source projects. Programming is about practice and most are interested in working with programmers that write comprehensible, reasonable code and can figure problems out on their own, a skill which self-executed projects or contributing to public projects demonstrate. Most of all the projects demonstrate that you’re really motivated about something, because you do it on your own time. Real world software development is such that you need to understand the code others write and write code that others understand and deem as reasonable, and you need to be able to seek help when you don’t know what to do.</p>
<p>ComicStix “Is it even worth trying to apply for a summer internship? I don’t want to fill out applications and get rejected again.”</p>
<p>It’s best to lose that mindset. The only way to guarantee that you won’t get an internship is to not apply. Does your college have a career fair in the fall and/or Spring? If so, attend and hand out resumes. Perhaps something will turn up. If not, you know at least that you put forth your best effort. BTW- Freshman do obtain CS internships so there is hope.</p>