r/internships • u/No_Display_5012 • May 13 '26
During the Internship A mess of an internship
I’m doing this internship and I’ve been doing a co-op with them since January but it’s a fucking mess.
I haven’t ever gotten trained, literally ONE 30 min meeting per day and I just sit around there’s nothing else to do!!! FOR 9 HOURS!!
Now they are requiring me to come to office and I’m wondering what the fuck I will do all day?? Will I act like I’m being super productive?? WTH and it’s an open office concept so I’m really cooked
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u/doenoez May 13 '26
this is what an internship is about, adding experience to your resume and that's it. no?
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u/No_Display_5012 May 13 '26
My goal was to get a full time offer but it’s just a waste of a year for me
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u/Frequent-Turn-8024 May 13 '26
Most places aren't hiring interns right out the gate anymore. At least you're getting the experience on paper
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u/No_Display_5012 May 13 '26
That’s true that’s why I’m holding on. I have to go to office tomorrow again and I’m thinking of just spending my time to master excel or power BI or sql something ANYTHING so I can move to a better company hopefully
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May 14 '26
[deleted]
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u/No_Bandicoot_6495 May 14 '26
it’s only a dream until uve actually been in a chair everyday for 7 hours bored as fuck i don’t know why people romanticise jobs where you do nothing, it made me go insane
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u/midnightrevvv May 19 '26
Exactly! people need to walk around and do smth or else we finna go crazy
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u/123dontwhackme May 14 '26
Same and it’s messing with my mental health a bit
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u/No_Display_5012 May 14 '26
Yeah like I’m literally up at the ass crack of dawn to drive 1 hour and a half to sit and do nothing😭
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u/Appropriate-Tutor587 May 13 '26
Sadly you need to suck it up until August. You shouldn’t have taken the summer internship if the co-op position was already messy enough!
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u/No_Display_5012 May 14 '26
It’s more so for financial stability. My family is dependent on me, otherwise for my own mental health I would’ve not done it this summer
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u/Malyutka2000 May 13 '26
Curious, if you had done a co-op with them in January, how was it like last semester?
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u/No_Display_5012 May 13 '26
It was the same unorganized crap. But, I was taking classes so I didn’t really mind it not being organized.
Now that I completed the semester I’m so BORED!! There’s nothing I’ve learned other than a few tiny things and nothing to do. They barely assign me tasks and now I’m working full time so it’s double the time of nothingness
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u/RyanX__ May 14 '26
I hope you’re getting paid to be there at least.
Can you/ have you asked for work? You said everyone is overworked in another comment.
Otherwise you can try to learn new skills, it’ll just take some creativity coming up with your own projects to do.
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u/No_Display_5012 May 14 '26
I have asked for work. They acknowledge that they don’t really know what to do with me. It’s been so bad, they’ve switched me around team 3 times in 5 months.
Everyone is overworked and if they try to give me work they’d have to train me a little on what the task is, and no one is willing to do that. So instead, I’m just sitting around doing nothing all day.
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u/ImaToazt May 14 '26
Wow that sucks. I'm grateful that for most of my coop as a computer engineering student, I had a mentor who would check in on me at least every other day asking about my work and if I needed any help. Since your company is going downhill, I would suggest just reading documents and doing your own learning. While it should be on the company/your mentor (if you have one) to train and teach you a bunch of industry knowledge, at this point, you have to fend for yourself. Your future employers would love to hear that you have experience and what your experience actually is. So learn anything and everything you possibly can, and take that hard work else where in the future. I know getting a full time return offer is comfortable and amazing but if you already don't like your environment now, you won't like it full time being overworked and stressed.
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u/No_Display_5012 May 14 '26
I know. I’m just more upset that this is my last summer in college and it could’ve been a great return but everyone hates working here, employees literally say that in front of the interns all the time.
There’s no other intern in my department. They only hired me, never had a mentor and keep getting switched off and on teams bc people are quitting.
Now I gotta apply to full time jobs and network so I can get something by January 😭😭😭
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u/ZookeepergameSome889 May 15 '26
Same. My boss even worse, he asked as to stay online in discord.
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u/ZookeepergameSome889 May 15 '26
I got nothing to do and some of my collegues can work remotely. I don't know how they got permitted.
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u/Pretty_Dick_336 May 16 '26
I don't know if this will work. But what I would do in this case is check ur mentor's schedule. Ask him for a one on one meeting for 30 minutes. Explain and say that you are really eager to learn anything any sort of work in ur field. Ask him if he has anything. If he does not ask him if there are any other department who u can contact with and ask them for work. That way your mentor would know you are actually desperate for work and hopefully might give you something. If not, just leave the company after this summer. Ik it's a tough market. But you can't just sit idle for 9 hours everyday for an entire summer or co-op. It's just not worth it!
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u/Pretty_Dick_336 May 16 '26
One more thing I would say. Come up with a project idea on your own. Ask your mentor what is product or project that if you make or work on that department might end up using in future. And work on that. Build ur own project. Submit it. Atleast u will have something to work on
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u/lavish_butterfly May 16 '26
Udemy, build a project, do school work, apply to more jobs
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u/No_Display_5012 May 16 '26
They won’t even allow me to do school work. They said if I take any summer classes they will have to let me go
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u/Stock-Turnover-777 May 18 '26
Just be proactive and network hard. At the end of the day you’ll have something to put on your resume. It’s all good.
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u/goldilockszone55 May 14 '26
They want you to find out about the company, get curious about how to improve the workspace, the job, do research if you are not too intimidated (given that you received no training); and they also want to know… why your school sent you there.
*make up a story* don’t be too serious… not only it doesn’t work but it has huge snowball effects… later
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u/Frequent-Turn-8024 May 13 '26
Sounds like at least you get the resume line. I would use your in-office time to network and meet people!