Getting Full Time Internship in First Year - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Disclosure: This blog is not written by AI. It describes my real experience of getting an internship in my first year.

How I Got a Full-Time Internship in My First Year

Background

When I joined college in July 2022, I was still working a night shift at Viji Foods, managing a team of 15. After a year, I left to focus on tech and invested in a few Udemy and a DSA course from Apna College. I didn’t expect much from my tier-3 college, but they surprised me with a co-op program.

The Co-Op Program

The college offered a two-month training program on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and Bootstrap, plus aptitude and interview prep. Completing it gave us a chance at on-campus internships. I had done projects, including a website built from Angela Yu’s MERN Stack course, and my communication skills from Viji Foods helped me stand out. Eventually, I landed an internship with one of the best companies in the co-op program.

The Ups and Downs

The Good

Working with an industry-level team so early gave me real experience and new skills in React and Ionic.

Especially after 2 years when I compare students from co-op who got industry level experience with those who opt for regular college the difference was much more clear. Given the realities of Indias education system most of the time in college is wasted in useless subjects, assignments and writting manuals, additionally no one in my college really had a passion of tech in the first place which stopped them to learn on their own. while those on the co-op side where given responsibilities that kind of forced them to learn more which made them more skilled

The Bad

Managing both full-time college and internship workloads was tough. Also, focusing on development pulled me away from DSA, which is crucial for tech interviews.

A lot of comapnies those who offered internships offered a 2 year internship which could have been good for those who want to work in service based companies where this experience would matter, but for those who want to get into Product based 2 years is just a lot to dedicate because at this time other important things for placement preparation would get missed out

Takeaway

Balancing skills and experience is key. Despite the challenges, this internship gave me a solid start in tech, and I’m now focused on mastering both development and DSA.

Early experiences like this are rare, so if you get the chance, go for it and make the most of it

very lesson, both good and bad!