Pros
- Interesting Projects: got to build some cool things, and I'm proud of what I was able to build with the feedback I received. I worked mostly with Python and Shell scripts, and improved my capabilities with both. - Flexible times/days (I had to "report" that I worked during weekday business hours, but that's not really enforced in any way and several times worked with other people after hours/on weekends because that was the time that made sense) - Genuine interest in making the internship valuable for both the company and me: my internship manager would every so often check in to make sure I was doing alright and enjoying the projects I was being assigned/reaching out to help when I got stuck etc - Great feedback when provided: I definitely improved my programming capabilities as a result of this internship, and I am very grateful for the feedback and testing of my projects. - Pay is low, but it's there! Having had a few unpaid internships, I was very grateful for the financial help. The "hours worked" system is a bit rigid (just part of the deal while working with government agencies) but you get used to it. - I was offered the chance to extend my internship, do some contracting work, and possibly come back in a fulltime position. I never got a "formal" offer, but there was a verbal offer at multiple points. The timing didn't work out for me to accept, but I probably would have done it if I could have. Even now, I would go back to work with them if my life was a little less hectic.
Cons
- At least in my experience, it was somewhat isolating. This wouldn't be a problem if you enjoy making projects solo/with feedback from 2-3 people, but if you are hoping for some "team project" this may not be the best fit. Granted, other interns could have had a different experience, so YMMV. - Interns and Full-Time staff don't interact that much (at least in my experience). This is probably a Pro from the company standpoint (having worked at companies with interns I can tell you it can sometimes be a challenge to work "intern time" into your busy day), but from the intern side, there weren't many opportunities to interact with the full-time people and see what they were working on. Again, take this with a grain of salt, I never asked to see what people were working on, and might have been able to if I did, but I didn't, so I only really got to talk with 2 or 3 full-time staff members based on the projects I worked on. In my time, the interns were on a Slack channel while full-time employees used a different system (MatterMost) for their communication, so someone would need to actively open up Slack to contact an intern or see messages. - Again, in my experience, Interns don't commonly get opportunities to network with one another in a meaningful capacity. The slack channel between interns was fairly cursory: I never joined a Zoom call or anything like that with the other interns so only knew their names based on their slack icons. But again, I didn't try very hard to make those connections, so could have just been me.