Internship ideas?

Jeremy Lindstrom

Anybody got any internship ideas? I was looking to start one in January, but haven't heard back from anyone as of yet, and some of those that do have internships take months to get back to you. I had one offer for QA, but I don't really plan on driving 8 hours north to do QA testing, not related to 3d in any way.

I only need minimum of 120 hours of internship but I can work much more. Just kinda frustrated, I may have to stay at school and run errands if I don't find something. I was hoping to move to Dallas for the internship and the wife would follow soon after, but at the moment looks like I'm going to be stuck in Tampa until March if I don't find an internship somewheres.

Any ideas? I'm plum out.

pliang

How often do you follow up with them? I usually get a formal response the second time I ask..after a week or two that is.

I think one of the least things to do would contacting some of the people on the forums as well.

Jeremy Lindstrom

yeah it's a tricky bag, I've been shooting an email every 2 weeks or so but I usually get no response at all. I've also been told (by people here) not to email them too much or I'd get blacklisted.

I've contacted a few folks via the board and applied for a couple of the positions for full time jobs, hoping to land one of those and try to work it out at the school as 'an' internship. Still haven't heard anything back, but afaik, it's crunch time at alot of places and it's the holidays, so I'm not sure what I'll get if anything.

aesir

I dont really have any advice. I applied two summers for internships and the first summer I got 0 offers, and the second one I got about 4 or 5. My portfolio wasn't much different either. I think its a timing issue for a lot of studios. Many only do internships in the summer. Many dont do them at all. Spamming their e-mail boxes wont do anything I'd think. If they want an intern, they'd get back to you.

Sage

Dekard this is a tough one, you might as well call to follow up, also look for companies in the field that deal with with 3d animation, video editing, the worse thing to do is stay doing errands for your professor. I got involved doing a project with a professor and it was a waste of money, but I did it to fill the requirement, I didn't have a car so I had to make do with what I had. I still regret that decision to this day. You can also check at graphic design places but that starts to take away from what you want to be doing. You can also ask some of your professor since they might know people that need help. Go to your career services center and ask them for help, they might be able to to refer someone to you.

Alex

Mark Dygert

This time of year is the happy time "lets relax and feast on the holiday profits". Most companies bust hump all spring long to put something on store shelves by Black Friday. This is the time they kick back, concept and dream up new projects. It's also toward the end of the fiscal quarter and if you're looking for a paid intern slot they've more then likely burned that cash while they worked toward the above mentioned goal.

After the first of the year its normally when those projects are given the go ahead and they push forward cautiously. Of course places run differently and are in different parts of their cycles, some are in the middle of a 2yr cycle some on a 5 yr, some on 6mo it all depends. Trying to hit that sweet spot when they are looking for slave labor is hard to gage, but generally its the spring/early summer months leading up to whenever they need to go gold for Black Friday. If you don't get responses this time of year don't immediately think, "oh shit I suck... /HangSelf". Because the moneys been spent for this year, the hogs are fat and happy and there isn't much to do. Unless you work where I do, we crank out 2.5 games a year and always hungry for fresh interns we can turn into hulking shells of human beings...

Jeremy Lindstrom

Yeah, I'd love to put off the internship but it puts off my graduation as it's an actual course. I'll try to find something but I guess I'll do my internship and then look for jobs, instead of pinning my hopes on landing my gig via an internship.

Sage

Dekard sometimes you can put off the internship slightly into the year, I guess it depends on the school though. At the one I attending some students enrolled into the course, but didn't find the place to intern until a few months into the semester. You might have to get permission to do this, I imagine it's different depending on the school, so don't lose hope yet. I knew students that walked their graduation without doing the intern within the semester. They just didn't get the piece of paper until they did the internship.

Alex

Mark Dygert

We have an intern that graduated on time, but technically finished his internship after graduation. He was under the hour requirement but had started the internship before his last semester ended. He had to talk to a career councilor type person and we had to provide info that he was interning and would meet the hours requirement. Kind of a pain but worked out for him. Might be a good idea to talk to whoever the point person is for that sort of thing.

Jeremy Lindstrom

Actually, I had my final presentation and panel board today and it went so well, they stated if I could find a full time job, I wouldn't need an internship and could work it out as technically the internship would be a step down if I could get a full time job. So they said continue to look for internship oppurtunities but if I landed a gig, they'll work it out with me updating them weekly on my skills and what I'm learning.

Sage

That's awesome man. Good luck with the job hunt then.

Alex

pliang

Sounds good...but they might as well put you on staff