What should I do this summer?

[Apollo]

I've got a totally out-of-the-blue question I need advice on:

I'm a HS junior this year. Over the coming summer, my dad wants me to intern at NASA (where he works). I want to be a computer scientist/programmer, so it'd be good experience. It'd also look dandy on a college application, and it pays better than a typical teenager job (about $7.35 an hour).

BUT it's a full-time job. 40 hours a week, except since I'd be riding with my dad I'd be gone from about 7:00-7:00, so it'd be more like 55-60 hours a week. Which means my summer would be shot--no time to see friends or do much of anything else whatsoever. Even the weekends are out, since all my friends work weekends. Even our annual vacation might go down the tubes, since they don't give you any days off. If I didn't do this, I'd get a more typical job--probly a pizza place or working in a hospital cafeteria.

So what should I do?

 

[Almindhra]

Well if you have the energy for it, I say go do it...Because although you might look at programming, and say, "Oh, this is what I want to do", you never can be too sure...You might find out that you don't like it that much, or that its not for you...That way, you don't waste time at college going for something...(Believe me, I know )...

 

[Chaos Turtle]

I'd say that interning at NASA is an excellent opportunity that you'd be nuts to pass up. Think of your resumé.

Almindhra makes a good point as well. It's a good time to be certain that it's what you really want to do.

On the other hand, you still have your post-graduation summer to try it out (assuming it's still available) but maybe you'd rather spend that summer having some fun before your world changes forever... (no pressure )

 

[Zadok001]

I think there is an inherent flaw in our educational system that teaches people that the purpose of life goes "Good grades, good degree, good job." Despite my general dislike for that idea, I still vote go for it. See if you can't arrange a few days off every once in a while to see your friends, however. The job sounds good, and it'll look great on your resume, as CT said. I may not like the process, but when you get a chance like that, to break the process, I say go for it!

 

[Spiderman]

Well, I would probably take it just for the experience, but you might want to think about what you'll actually be doing there. What do you want to do with computer programming in "life" and is this going to help you? Are you going to be programming on the mainframe in COBOL and Assembler at NASA but do you want to do object oriented languages? Or vice versa? Or are you trying to figure out if you'd like the area of programming that they're putting you in?

Are the colleges you're looking at like internships? It's been almost a decade for me , but from what I remember, they seem to be looking more at your extracurricular activities or volunteer work in the community or stuff, not necessarily work experience ('cause you might change majors and stuff).

I guess the money isn't bad either, especially if you have to pay for a lot of stuff already right now. So I'd do it for the experience, depending on what you want to get out of it, and the money.

And maybe you and your friends can squeeze in time somewhere...

 

[Duster]

Somebody should oink COBOL out, I've never seen a dirtier word

But all kidding aside, this is an incredible opportunity. Not only will you be making good summer money, but you'll be getting the experience and knowledge to open up your options.

The worst case scenario is that you don't really like doing it (fat chance of not liking NASA) and you learn that you don't like doing it and you catch yourself before spending 2-4 years in college (not to mention a lot of money). And regardless of if you like it or not, it's going to look good on college applications and resumes (as so many others have pointed out).

If I were in the position, I'd go for it, it may seem like you won't see your friends at all, but it probably won't be so bad. YOu can always work things out with them.

Good luck dude, I gotta go to a COBOL class now (I'm not kidding!).

 

[Ura]

Dude, go for NASA all the way. Despite that it will eat up your summer vacation its a huge once in a life time opportunity. I would love to be able to intern there. No doubt it'll be alot of hard work, but it'll be fantastic experience and besides that, how many people do you know can brag that they worked at NASA?

 

[arhar]

Heh, usually I would say "Don't miss this great opportunity, go for it!" but... You're still in High School, junior year? Hmmm..... High school is supposed to be fun, and hanging out with friends I'm not sure, maybe you should wait till couple of years into college to do that?

 

[rkoelsch]

I going to say take the job at NASA only because I am jealous of anyone who has free time.

 

[Zadok001]

(COBOL - Completely Obsolete Boring Old Language)

 

[Duster]

Amen Zadok, I didn't choose to take a COBOL class, it's part of my degree requirements...they say it'll be good to know for updating old code...whatever.


In response to arhar's reply, I'm going to have to disagree, there's an opportunity for much more "fun" in college. Not to mention an opportunity like this may not present itself in college.

S'all,
Dustin

 

[Spiderman]

If you know Pascal or old Basic (not Visual, I don't think), you pretty much know COBOL. And it's really not that bad... I would bet a lot of mainframe stuff is programmed in it and if you know anything about computers and business, you know that mainframes are not going away. And who's going to take the time and rewrite code that works into "modern" language? Which is why we had the Y2K problem... original programmers figured their code would be rewritten later and later programmers (and management) figured, hey, it works, why fix something that isn't broken?

The point is, depending on what you want to do, while knowing OOPs are good, knowing procedural languages aren't bad either and COBOL certainly isn't the worst.

spoken by one who programs in COBOL and assembler for a living

 

[rkoelsch]

I remember taking COBOL in 1982 when it was still fairly new. Then I got out of programming altogether and now I am trying to catch up. So maybe this old programming knowledge will help.

 

[arhar]

Originally posted by Duster

In response to arhar's reply, I'm going to have to disagree, there's an opportunity for much more "fun" in college. Not to mention an opportunity like this may not present itself in college.

Of course there can be fun at college! Like when you drink the entire first year and then lock yourself in the room, sacrificing all the social life) trying to catch up, for the next one (yes I did)

 

[Mr_Pestilence]

It just depends.

If you want a safe, secure, but dull career, hanging out with the birth-control glasses and pen protector set, then by all means take the internship and don't look back.

But keep a couple of things in mind. Programming jobs are still available, but forget the outrageous salaries code warriors were getting a few years ago.

I was a code warrior myself, until the boom went bust. It was OK while it lasted, but banging out code on some boring project until I couldn't see straight really got old.

Find out what you love, and pursue it.

 

[Apollo]

Thanks to everyone who responded.

Mr_P: Well, what I love is tennis. Unfortunately, I suck, and I'm not thinking I'm going to be able to make money at it. You said you used to be a programmer and didn't like it; what are you doing now?

There isn't a whole lot I like in school. The C++ class I'm in now (they only offer C++ and Pascale) is my favorite class, along with Ceramics (and I just like mushing clay around, I've never produced anything good). It's very possible that I wouldn't like programming after I've done it for a while, which is another advantage of the NASA job. However, there's no guarantee I'll be programming. I'd just get assigned to some engineer and then do whatever he wants. I did talk to a couple people at school who had done the internship, and got mixed responses. It seems that depending on who you get assigned to, you could either do real work or you could end up feeding paper into a shredder all day, which of course would really suck.

Blah. Watch, after all this I'll apply and get rejected (it doesn't seem too likely, though).

And Ura, I actually live in NASA Central. Practically half of our city can brag that they've worked at NASA.

 

[Spiderman]

COBOL is actually still updated by IBM, a new release came out around the mid-late 90's.

As I mentioned before, there's mainly two programming areas: procedural (which uses mainframe mostly) or OOP, which is a lot of web applications and games. C++ (which apparently is going to be replaced by C#) is the latter and that's where (I think) a lot of growth in the field is. Plus, you can throw in "database management" which is a lot of SQL and/or CICS for online stuff. While not perhaps "strictly" programming, you might see enough of it.

And salaries depend on what you're doing. My friend is a database/web apps person learning C# while using whatever his company currently uses for web stuff and pulls in close to 6 figures. He's teaching me a bit of it and since C# is pretty close to C++, I consider it programming (the stuff that goes on behind the web/windows apps).