6 ms·

My Internship Experience as a 13-Year-Old

88 points by shainvs 13y ago

gedrap 13y ago
That's amazing, I am really happy about the founders getting teenagers as interns. Those are life long memories for them.
- rurounijones 13y ago
  I thought the entire point of "interns" was to give young people (i.e. teenagers) the chance to work in a real company and get experience, usually over school holidays etc. I think SV (and maybe modern capitalism) has corrupted the term "intern" to be "an excuse for us to not pay you" without the other benefits experienced by the "intern". [EDIT] I should clarify that I am a Brit and never heard the term "intern" used outside of my above definition until I started reading US tech news where it seems to be applied to older people as well.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    Not really true. There is no corruption. White House internship doesn't pay anyone and is one of the hottest place to work for since days. It's entirely a decision people make. You don't want the money but the experience, you can go for it. No one is forcing you to take a job without salary.
    - shainvs 13y ago
      I agree. I got a lot better at coding, and a real life experience. What more could I ask for?
    - daven14 13y ago
      Internships are also good at keeping out the wrong sort of people. Lets face it - if you can't afford to go to work and not get paid then you're not really from a good family, and we don't want the wrong sort of people invading our jobs. Someone with a few internships is obviously from the right stock and we can safely employ them, providing of course they go to our club.
  - bronxbomber92 13y ago
    Isn't SV (i.e. the tech industry) one of the few places where interns do get paid (and paid well, to boot)? All of my buds in the social sciences (politics) and media industry (LA film industry) don't get paid or get paid very little.
  - twright0 13y ago
    Silicon Valley interns (in tech fields) are generally paid reasonably well. There may be some cases where tech companies here don't pay their interns but the majority certainly do. The cases of systemic intern non-payment seem to generally happen outside of the tech industry.
adamzerner 13y ago
You've got a real nice sense of design: in general, and especially for a 14 year old!! And keep doing what you love. Don't worry about the SAT's your sophomore summer. http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html
- vineel 13y ago
  I second this. Summers should not be spent studying for the SAT. Also, a good internship will look much better on a college app than a few extra points.
  - iyulaev 13y ago
    Also, a good internship will look much better on a college app than a few extra points. Sadly, nope, unless you're applying to a high-end private school. I know the UC system doesn't care at all about your work experience, and even if you founded a company when you were in HS, that would at best be worth 150-300 SAT points. Now that I think about it, it's scary that I still remember this.
    - flylib 13y ago
      it will look better on a resume for jobs/further internships down the road though which is just as important anyway
      - philangist 13y ago
        Probably more important. Going to a good school is great, working on cool projects and gaining work experience is awesome.
      - adamzerner 13y ago
        not only that... but it'll be better for finding your passion, for being better at what you do, for networking etc.
      - iyulaev 13y ago
rfnslyr 13y ago
Man. You are going places. That's all I want to say. Good luck to you and I will remember your name for the future.
- shainvs 13y ago
  Thank you very much! I appreciate it!
onedev 13y ago
Man when I was that age, my only concern in the world was trading Pokemon cards after school. I wouldn't have given up that carefree experience for the world. I don't know how I feel when I read about things like this. It starts off as jealousy that the kids started their "career" at such a young age, then respect towards them for the same reason, but then I feel sad because at the end of the day I feel like they're being robbed of a childhood in some ways. Then I go back and read, and it seems like the kid had a lot of fun, and maybe I'm the one who's lacking perspective. I don't know. I think it's great at the end of the day. Obviously smart kid, and he'll go places, but I just don't want him to miss out on the more lighthearted times in his life.
- eugeneross 13y ago
  Great point. The way I see it, the journey will always be better than the destination.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  The world has changed so much since then. I am only 22 so I think we are pretty much the same age. Kids don't even watch cartoon now. They play games on ipad and make vine videos...
  - philangist 13y ago
    Kids definitely still watch cartoons. A lot. Source: currently watching Regular Show with my 4 younger siblings.
    - corin_ 13y ago
      While I agree with your conclusion, one household of data isn't particularly relevant to what most children do.
      - OvidNaso 13y ago
        How about the legion of animation programming that's commissioned every year?
kevonc 13y ago
Thats excellent. Keep going!
atsaloli 13y ago
Very well done to both intern and MGWU!
- shainvs 13y ago
  Thank you!
pallandt 13y ago
Excellent and I hope you acquired Proxima Nova legally. If not, better make that right.
- pallandt 13y ago
  I find it funny that this was downvoted into oblivion. It's valid advice, especially considering this person is young and needs guidance/advice for best practices.
zachlatta 13y ago
I think what you're doing is really neat. I'm also a high school student and I'm always excited to meet others my age. I'd love it if you could shoot me an email over at zach@zachlatta.com.
- throwaway344 13y ago
  Thinking about it, we should probably make up a high school-age HNers group. My email is adam.davies@outlook.com for more details.
  - iancarroll 13y ago
    The 8th grader feels left out (me). I'm at Ian.carroll@snapstudiodesign.com if you'd like to include me :)
  - krrishd 13y ago
    I've already been working on a community for high-school coders at http://www.teen2geek.com http://www.teen2geek.com, and so once we launch (beta will be out in January 2014) I would really love it if some more guys like you could come over and contribute to the discussions. My email address is krishna.dholakiya@gmail.com in case anyone wants to talk :)
untitledwiz 13y ago
Please, go outside, play and run around. Learn to skate, get a boyfriend/girlfriend. There will be so much opportunity for work later on in life. Definitely spend time coding if that's what you love but don't make it your everything. Develop other aspects of your personality/intelligence/body equally. Best wishes!
- Darmani 13y ago
  This kid is living his dream and having a great time. There's no rule that says he has to want any of those things. We should all support him for being who he wants to be. My parents said similar things to me, and I grew to resent them for it.
- shainvs 13y ago
  During my internship, I ran almost every single day and I love do other activities besides coding... I agree with you that I shouldn't make coding my everything, I still love to do it when I have free time.
  - untitledwiz 13y ago
    It's great you're exercising daily, aim to make it part of your daily routine, it'll pay off very well in the future. When I was your age I had days and even weeks during my summer breaks when I would get bored out of my mind. Believe it or not there's some benefit in that. It allowed me to find new ways to entertain myself and definitely boosted/developed my creativity. Try to get bored every once in a while, it feels nice :)
- Rayne 13y ago
  As a 19 year old software engineer who started writing code when he was 13 because it was fun, I don't think this quite hits the mark. I didn't give up everything in life to be a programmer, but it was my passion (and it looks like it's this guy's passion as well). It is fun. I still played outside, had friends, and lived a childhood. What I got out of it are skills that are in demand, a head start on life, and adult, mature friends who kept me out of trouble and helped me build a fun, happy life for myself. I owe everything to programming. I was a kid from a small town in Alabama and now I'm a happy software engineer in Los Angeles. I got to go to the first Clojure Conj conference when I was 16, speak at the second at 17, and get an internship that led to a job at around the same time. I met the best friends I could have ever met through it and have had more fun that I could have ever imagined having as a direct result of it. That said, we're not entirely at odds. It is important to keep yourself healthy and such and not let it completely take over your life. I just felt it important to provide a different perspective on the matter.
asandweech 13y ago
Keep on trucking. I started working full time as a SE when I was 16. The job provided a nice relief from highschool and helped build up good working habits before I left for college. If you are interested, see if your school would be willing to allow for a work study so you would be able to pursue such things during the school year.
azamsharp1 13y ago
We need more kids like you! I see kids these days with their heads down in their mobile device playing games, facebook, instagram, snapchat and what not! They are wasting precious time. Time that will never come back!!!
- shainvs 13y ago
  Most of the kids my age are doing exactly what you just described above. I want to be the person making games and apps that other teens get addicted to.
  - krrishd 13y ago
    Yeah, and its really ironic how despite our generations addiction to such games, very few of us actually know the code that goes behind it
exo_duz 13y ago
I would've loved to be able to be given the opportunity like this. I live in Perth and apart from mining the IT industry is non-existant. There are no internship and mentoring program. I say grab the bull by the horns and do as much as you can.
purplelobster 13y ago
It's amazing that the culture can be so different. Going to college in a European country, I never did an internship. I barely even worked summer jobs, I did maybe one summer's worth of work spread out over a few years, just to get some money. Even college summers were spent LANing with friends, fishing, watching movies, swimming, traveling, reading, some recreational coding etc. Just enjoying the summer, not worrying about my future career. It was great. Honestly, even though I could've spent my summers doing internships, I think it would have been rather pointless. I was already working 110% during the school year and still learning basic math, science and related theory. Whatever work I would've put in would have been sub-par. And that time was great to unwind. Imagine my astonishment when I first came to the US and kids in the first and second year of college were doing internships at Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Good on them I suppose, especially getting paid well to do it, but I can't see how it helps much. Seems mostly like a way for Google et al to fish for young talent before they graduate. Anyway, being as excited about coding as this kid is, maybe this is the best way for him to use his time, but the culture difference is just amusing to me.
- argonaut 13y ago
  >even though I could've spent my summers doing internships, I think it would have been rather pointless. >I can't see how it helps much. Seems mostly like a way for Google et al to fish for young talent before they graduate. There is tremendous value in summer internships. You get to "test out" companies to work for after graduation. You get to learn a ton about actually using technologies in production and/or at scale. You get to learn from engineers who have years of industry experience. You get to work on technologies you would otherwise never work with (e.g. big data) by yourself. By the time you graduate, you will already have 9 months work experience, rather than 0, which makes starting a startup a more feasible option than before. I'm a little bewildered as to why you (or the culture in Europe?) find these internships pointless. If what you say about the culture in Europe is true, I find this to actually be a competitive advantage for students/companies in the US.
shainvs 13y ago
The IdeyaApp link is now fixed for my portfolio page... Sorry!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jacalata 13y ago
This is a sweet experience, but I think it's more accurately described as 'programming camp'. A company that has a business of teaching kids to program games advertised for some kids to come in during the summer and be taught to program games as guinea pigs. Of course, I can see why the company and the kids involved would all be more excited to describe it as an internship, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to let them get away with redefining the word.
k__ 13y ago
I think it's still better than those kids who get pregnant at 13... Everything can be seen as work and fun. If you do something for fun it doesn't feel like work anymore. I started coding with 15 and it was a good time.
visakanv 13y ago
Hey Shalin, wonderful to hear from you. It's lovely to see your passion and focus. I'm curious to hear about your peers. Do you have a group of friends your age that you hang out with, or do you spend most of your time with older people? Also, random, but what kind of music do you listen to?
- shainvs 13y ago
  I have a group of friends that are all my age. Also, at the school I go to, no one really knows how to code. I usually listen to the billboard playlist while coding. http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

88 points by shainvs 13y ago

That's amazing, I am really happy about the founders getting teenagers as interns. Those are life long memories for them.

rurounijones 13y ago
I thought the entire point of "interns" was to give young people (i.e. teenagers) the chance to work in a real company and get experience, usually over school holidays etc. I think SV (and maybe modern capitalism) has corrupted the term "intern" to be "an excuse for us to not pay you" without the other benefits experienced by the "intern". [EDIT] I should clarify that I am a Brit and never heard the term "intern" used outside of my above definition until I started reading US tech news where it seems to be applied to older people as well.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  Not really true. There is no corruption. White House internship doesn't pay anyone and is one of the hottest place to work for since days. It's entirely a decision people make. You don't want the money but the experience, you can go for it. No one is forcing you to take a job without salary.
  - shainvs 13y ago
    I agree. I got a lot better at coding, and a real life experience. What more could I ask for?
  - daven14 13y ago
    Internships are also good at keeping out the wrong sort of people. Lets face it - if you can't afford to go to work and not get paid then you're not really from a good family, and we don't want the wrong sort of people invading our jobs. Someone with a few internships is obviously from the right stock and we can safely employ them, providing of course they go to our club.
- bronxbomber92 13y ago
  Isn't SV (i.e. the tech industry) one of the few places where interns do get paid (and paid well, to boot)? All of my buds in the social sciences (politics) and media industry (LA film industry) don't get paid or get paid very little.
- twright0 13y ago
  Silicon Valley interns (in tech fields) are generally paid reasonably well. There may be some cases where tech companies here don't pay their interns but the majority certainly do. The cases of systemic intern non-payment seem to generally happen outside of the tech industry.

adamzerner 13y ago

You've got a real nice sense of design: in general, and especially for a 14 year old!! And keep doing what you love. Don't worry about the SAT's your sophomore summer. http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

vineel 13y ago
I second this. Summers should not be spent studying for the SAT. Also, a good internship will look much better on a college app than a few extra points.
- iyulaev 13y ago
  Also, a good internship will look much better on a college app than a few extra points. Sadly, nope, unless you're applying to a high-end private school. I know the UC system doesn't care at all about your work experience, and even if you founded a company when you were in HS, that would at best be worth 150-300 SAT points. Now that I think about it, it's scary that I still remember this.
  - flylib 13y ago
    it will look better on a resume for jobs/further internships down the road though which is just as important anyway
    - philangist 13y ago
      Probably more important. Going to a good school is great, working on cool projects and gaining work experience is awesome.
    - adamzerner 13y ago
      not only that... but it'll be better for finding your passion, for being better at what you do, for networking etc.
    - iyulaev 13y ago

rfnslyr 13y ago

Man. You are going places. That's all I want to say. Good luck to you and I will remember your name for the future.

shainvs 13y ago
Thank you very much! I appreciate it!

onedev 13y ago

Man when I was that age, my only concern in the world was trading Pokemon cards after school. I wouldn't have given up that carefree experience for the world. I don't know how I feel when I read about things like this. It starts off as jealousy that the kids started their "career" at such a young age, then respect towards them for the same reason, but then I feel sad because at the end of the day I feel like they're being robbed of a childhood in some ways. Then I go back and read, and it seems like the kid had a lot of fun, and maybe I'm the one who's lacking perspective. I don't know. I think it's great at the end of the day. Obviously smart kid, and he'll go places, but I just don't want him to miss out on the more lighthearted times in his life.

eugeneross 13y ago
Great point. The way I see it, the journey will always be better than the destination.
yeukhon 13y ago
The world has changed so much since then. I am only 22 so I think we are pretty much the same age. Kids don't even watch cartoon now. They play games on ipad and make vine videos...
- philangist 13y ago
  Kids definitely still watch cartoons. A lot. Source: currently watching Regular Show with my 4 younger siblings.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    While I agree with your conclusion, one household of data isn't particularly relevant to what most children do.
    - OvidNaso 13y ago
      How about the legion of animation programming that's commissioned every year?

kevonc 13y ago

Thats excellent. Keep going!

atsaloli 13y ago

Very well done to both intern and MGWU!

shainvs 13y ago
Thank you!

pallandt 13y ago

Excellent and I hope you acquired Proxima Nova legally. If not, better make that right.

pallandt 13y ago
I find it funny that this was downvoted into oblivion. It's valid advice, especially considering this person is young and needs guidance/advice for best practices.

zachlatta 13y ago

I think what you're doing is really neat. I'm also a high school student and I'm always excited to meet others my age. I'd love it if you could shoot me an email over at zach@zachlatta.com.

throwaway344 13y ago
Thinking about it, we should probably make up a high school-age HNers group. My email is adam.davies@outlook.com for more details.
- iancarroll 13y ago
  The 8th grader feels left out (me). I'm at Ian.carroll@snapstudiodesign.com if you'd like to include me :)
- krrishd 13y ago
  I've already been working on a community for high-school coders at http://www.teen2geek.com http://www.teen2geek.com, and so once we launch (beta will be out in January 2014) I would really love it if some more guys like you could come over and contribute to the discussions. My email address is krishna.dholakiya@gmail.com in case anyone wants to talk :)

untitledwiz 13y ago

Please, go outside, play and run around. Learn to skate, get a boyfriend/girlfriend. There will be so much opportunity for work later on in life. Definitely spend time coding if that's what you love but don't make it your everything. Develop other aspects of your personality/intelligence/body equally. Best wishes!

Darmani 13y ago
This kid is living his dream and having a great time. There's no rule that says he has to want any of those things. We should all support him for being who he wants to be. My parents said similar things to me, and I grew to resent them for it.
shainvs 13y ago
During my internship, I ran almost every single day and I love do other activities besides coding... I agree with you that I shouldn't make coding my everything, I still love to do it when I have free time.
- untitledwiz 13y ago
  It's great you're exercising daily, aim to make it part of your daily routine, it'll pay off very well in the future. When I was your age I had days and even weeks during my summer breaks when I would get bored out of my mind. Believe it or not there's some benefit in that. It allowed me to find new ways to entertain myself and definitely boosted/developed my creativity. Try to get bored every once in a while, it feels nice :)
Rayne 13y ago
As a 19 year old software engineer who started writing code when he was 13 because it was fun, I don't think this quite hits the mark. I didn't give up everything in life to be a programmer, but it was my passion (and it looks like it's this guy's passion as well). It is fun. I still played outside, had friends, and lived a childhood. What I got out of it are skills that are in demand, a head start on life, and adult, mature friends who kept me out of trouble and helped me build a fun, happy life for myself. I owe everything to programming. I was a kid from a small town in Alabama and now I'm a happy software engineer in Los Angeles. I got to go to the first Clojure Conj conference when I was 16, speak at the second at 17, and get an internship that led to a job at around the same time. I met the best friends I could have ever met through it and have had more fun that I could have ever imagined having as a direct result of it. That said, we're not entirely at odds. It is important to keep yourself healthy and such and not let it completely take over your life. I just felt it important to provide a different perspective on the matter.

asandweech 13y ago

Keep on trucking. I started working full time as a SE when I was 16. The job provided a nice relief from highschool and helped build up good working habits before I left for college. If you are interested, see if your school would be willing to allow for a work study so you would be able to pursue such things during the school year.

azamsharp1 13y ago

We need more kids like you! I see kids these days with their heads down in their mobile device playing games, facebook, instagram, snapchat and what not! They are wasting precious time. Time that will never come back!!!

shainvs 13y ago
Most of the kids my age are doing exactly what you just described above. I want to be the person making games and apps that other teens get addicted to.
- krrishd 13y ago
  Yeah, and its really ironic how despite our generations addiction to such games, very few of us actually know the code that goes behind it

exo_duz 13y ago

I would've loved to be able to be given the opportunity like this. I live in Perth and apart from mining the IT industry is non-existant. There are no internship and mentoring program. I say grab the bull by the horns and do as much as you can.

purplelobster 13y ago

It's amazing that the culture can be so different. Going to college in a European country, I never did an internship. I barely even worked summer jobs, I did maybe one summer's worth of work spread out over a few years, just to get some money. Even college summers were spent LANing with friends, fishing, watching movies, swimming, traveling, reading, some recreational coding etc. Just enjoying the summer, not worrying about my future career. It was great. Honestly, even though I could've spent my summers doing internships, I think it would have been rather pointless. I was already working 110% during the school year and still learning basic math, science and related theory. Whatever work I would've put in would have been sub-par. And that time was great to unwind. Imagine my astonishment when I first came to the US and kids in the first and second year of college were doing internships at Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Good on them I suppose, especially getting paid well to do it, but I can't see how it helps much. Seems mostly like a way for Google et al to fish for young talent before they graduate. Anyway, being as excited about coding as this kid is, maybe this is the best way for him to use his time, but the culture difference is just amusing to me.

argonaut 13y ago
>even though I could've spent my summers doing internships, I think it would have been rather pointless. >I can't see how it helps much. Seems mostly like a way for Google et al to fish for young talent before they graduate. There is tremendous value in summer internships. You get to "test out" companies to work for after graduation. You get to learn a ton about actually using technologies in production and/or at scale. You get to learn from engineers who have years of industry experience. You get to work on technologies you would otherwise never work with (e.g. big data) by yourself. By the time you graduate, you will already have 9 months work experience, rather than 0, which makes starting a startup a more feasible option than before. I'm a little bewildered as to why you (or the culture in Europe?) find these internships pointless. If what you say about the culture in Europe is true, I find this to actually be a competitive advantage for students/companies in the US.

shainvs 13y ago

The IdeyaApp link is now fixed for my portfolio page... Sorry!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jacalata 13y ago

This is a sweet experience, but I think it's more accurately described as 'programming camp'. A company that has a business of teaching kids to program games advertised for some kids to come in during the summer and be taught to program games as guinea pigs. Of course, I can see why the company and the kids involved would all be more excited to describe it as an internship, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to let them get away with redefining the word.

k__ 13y ago

I think it's still better than those kids who get pregnant at 13... Everything can be seen as work and fun. If you do something for fun it doesn't feel like work anymore. I started coding with 15 and it was a good time.

visakanv 13y ago

Hey Shalin, wonderful to hear from you. It's lovely to see your passion and focus. I'm curious to hear about your peers. Do you have a group of friends your age that you hang out with, or do you spend most of your time with older people? Also, random, but what kind of music do you listen to?

shainvs 13y ago
I have a group of friends that are all my age. Also, at the school I go to, no one really knows how to code. I usually listen to the billboard playlist while coding. http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100