So I’m a sophomore in high school and, like many others, have started the cold-emailing process for internships. I like bioinformatics and computational biology, but I don’t know if that is what I want to be doing down the line and in college (I just like using machine learning in general - like Deepmind or OpenAI). Should I just continue doing comp. bio. research but do a regular computer science major in college? Is this a common thing? Or should I start focusing on other kinds of internships?
Your in high school and really difficult to get internships. But I would take any if you get offers. Doesn’t really matter. Just get your feet wet and build from there. Can always ask to shadow someone if they don’t have internships. Experience is experience.
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Don’t blinker yourself too early:
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What you want and what you can get- not just at 16, but for the next several years- are seldom the same thing. @Knowsstuff does know stuff, and is right that experience is experience, especially because
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part of the point of internships is to learn stuff, including what you take to / what you don’t and what different paths are really like to walk- the same heading “computational bio” can go in many, many directions and
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you are not static- not only are you learning from each class and internship, but your actual brain is changing. Trying to micro-manage the process is counter-productive at this stage.
In the mad world of college prep that you are in it can be tough to trust the process, but truly the best thing you can do is to make each choice based on the truest thing to you: this internship because the field is interesting or the supervisor is great, rather than that internship with the more famous name. If you keep choosing the one that is truest to you at each decision point, you will make yourself a path that is right for you.
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And don’t stress if you can’t get an internship in HS. It’s totally OK to get a “regular” summer job and the experience can be great!
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