Your girl just finished her first big tech internship freshman summer 🥳. This is far from a professional or comprehensive guide, just some tips from my personal experience. Shoutout to the Yuanfudao team and UChicago Career Office!
Aligning your goals
On the first day of my job, I wrote down a few principles on a sticky note to remind myself every day I walked into office. My internship was 8 weeks in person, which honestly flew by, so you really want to make the most out of each day.
Goal 1: Learn fast. It goes without saying that learning should be the top priority. There have been many times where I got sidetracked by trying too hard to make a good impression, or set sky-high goals that were simply impossible in the timeframe. The smartest option, in my opinion, is to optimize for self-improvement.
Goal 2: Deliver value. My freshman summer internship was relatively low stakes, but you should always try to bring some kind of value to the team. As an intern, it’s expected that you’ll need more handholding, and you’ll probably be learning most of the time. But value creation could happen within and beyond the projects you’re assigned. Whenever I could, I tried to help get coffee, take out the trash, or just be a cheerful presence. Those tasks seem trivial but definitely helped me leave a positive impression on the team.
Goal 3: Build relationships. I’m not the most outgoing person, but I definitely tried to build a strong relationship with my mentor and colleagues over the eight weeks. What I loved about the SWE internship was that it wasn’t super bureaucratic, and all of my senior colleagues were welcoming. I leveraged the collaborative culture to ask questions, create trust, and just show them that I wanteed to be there.
On learning effectively
Now delving deeper into each goal. I think the best thing you could do at an internship is to ask questions. I was assigned a mentor within our 30-people team, and we both reported to the manager. I understood immediately that I was expected to take initiative when it came to things I didn’t understand. On the first day, I was not given any sort of tasks or directions, until I asked for an assignment explicitly.
The caveat to this is that you should be prepared when you ask questions. We all know the one guy in our lecture that raises his hand every 5 seconds. Don’t be that guy. If you’re given an assignment, read through the instructions, then ask pinpointed questions about the specifics. Do your homework.
Here are some formulae I’ve found helpful for asking technical questions:
Here’s what I’ve tried [explain previous efforts] …
Here’s what I think is happening [summarize roadblock] …
Can you help me understand [the next steps / how to fix this issue / how to work around this]?
With that, I also recommend writing everything down. I’m kind of a documenting freak (if you couldn’t tell). I kept a running list of concepts, acronyms, tools, and processes - almost like a private version of the company’s documentation. It was helpful that our team used Notion to manage progress, so I just integrated my notes within that. But any documenting tool would do.
Every day, I also kept track of everything I accomplished, learned, and stumbled upon. My mentor didn’t require me to submit a daily report, but we had daily standups and weekly meetings where everyone was expected to talk. Thanks to my notes, I didn’t freak out when I first found out that even the interns had to present, too.
Tracking progress is also very helpful for resume purposes. For technical roles especially, it’s easy to forget your specific daily contributions. Document everything in the beginning so you don’t have to waste time going back into the files and trying to remember what you did.
How to deliver value
I struggle with perfectionism. A lot. During my first research internship in high school, I spent three days fixing a small bug in the code before asking my mentor for help. I get that we don’t want to embarrass ourselves or deliver incomplete work, but like my dad always reminds me: “Completion is more important than perfection.”
We all need to set our student mindset aside for a second and stop treating deliverables like the Hume final essay that we need an A on to save our grade (if you know, you know). In a fast-paced work environment, it’s better to deliver something early, even if it’s incomplete, so you can get feedback quickly.
For SWE roles specifically, I would play the Devil’s Advocate just a little bit and say that a healthy dose of perfectionism can help sometimes. No one cares if you slack off on PEP8 or use emojis as variable names in personal projects, but in a work setting, it’s absolutely necessary to follow professional guidelines and not break anything.
The team I was on had an interesting dynamic, where we had very formal, comprehensive guidelines from the corporation, but since our team was newly formed to focus on AI features, our manager had somewhat of a scrappy, startup-like approach. I appreciated having the flexibility to take on projects I was interested in, but I still made sure to read through the company wiki so I could hold myself to the same standards as the senior teammates.
Be flexible, and be a sponge. I’m not the fastest learner, but I’m always curious about every new thing. I pounced on every new concept that came my way, and definitely felt like I’ve learned a lot after the eight weeks.
Building relationships
I was very grateful that I had a very chill team that didn’t micromanage or encourage toxic competition. However, that also made it easy to hide away as an intern. To keep myself accountable and show my initiative, I made it a rule to send my mentor a report every evening. Nothing overboard, just a quick summary of what problems I solved, what problems I faced, and my plan for the next day.
This was done in addition to the spontaneous chats, Q&A, and meetings throughout the day, so that I could have something concrete. It gave me a sense of accomplishment and urgency, and it also helped my mentor point me in the right direction and assign me the most fitting tasks.
Here’s a helpful template:
Along with that, I put a huge emphasis on asking for feedback. I know I’m not a genius programmer, and I don’t take any criticism personally (especially when it comes to my code). One thing I loved about being an intern is that I was expected to make mistakes. I actively invited feedback from my mentor and manager, and I would take notes and follow up once I applied them.
We’ve all been told that best people to work with aren’t necessarily the smartest. Whatever I lacked in coding prowess, I tried to make up with humility. Hopefully, it worked.
Some closing notes
There were definitely times when I questioned whether I was adding any value to the team, or even felt like I was being a burden to my mentor. If you’ve ever had similar feelings, I think it’s completely normal and expected. Especially for women and other underrepresented groups in STEM, imposter syndrome couldn’t be more common. To succeed, you have to first believe in yourself, and remind yourself every day that you deserve a spot there. That’s the basis for any growth.
I’m so grateful to have received such an opportunity, especially so early on in my college life. I definitely wasn’t a “perfect” intern, and made more mistakes than I could count, but there were definitely intentional steps I took to help me succeed as much as possible.
If you’re starting out, hopefully this article has helped you in framing your experience. Let me know if you’re interested in some detailed tips & tricks, or advice on how to land an internship!
Citation Guide
APA:
Zhang, Y. (2025, July 14). How to make the most out of your SWE internship (FULL GUIDE). Retrieved from https://yoursite.com/posts/how-to-make-the-most-out-of-your-swe-internship
MLA:
Zhang, Yoyo. “How to Make the Most Out of Your SWE Internship (FULL GUIDE).” Your Site, 14 July 2025, https://yoursite.com/posts/how-to-make-the-most-out-of-your-swe-internship.
Chicago:
Yoyo Zhang. “How to Make the Most Out of Your SWE Internship (FULL GUIDE).” Last modified July 14, 2025. https://yoursite.com/posts/how-to-make-the-most-out-of-your-swe-internship.
BibTeX:
@article{zhang2025swe,
title={How to make the most out of your SWE internship (FULL GUIDE)},
author={Zhang, Yoyo},
year={2025},
url={https://yoursite.com/posts/how-to-make-the-most-out-of-your-swe-internship}
}