Which internship should I accept? vb.net/asp.net OR ruby on rails?

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+Plague+

Limp Gawd
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After having trouble finding an internship over the winter, I accepted a spring internship working with a startup company. The internship will have me use ruby on rails to be a tester/developer (I'm not too sure yet). The position is unpaid, and is 90 minutes from my apartment (3 hour minimum commute per day). The programmer works remotely, so I receive instructions on what to do via email. For the past two weeks I have been doing tutorial videos to get a better understanding of ruby on rails so that I can start contributing. I was given an initial assignment to make a small utility for the website, but I still have a long ways to go before I can finish it.

Recently, my friend recommended me to his previous employer, the city, as a vb.net/asp.net intern. I have an interview with them Monday, and he is almost positive they will hire me. It pays 10 dollars an hour, and it is 10 minutes away from me.

A lot of you might think it is an easy choice, however I am hesitant to switch to the paid internship because I have been told that there is a great deal of demand for ruby on rails developers, and my biggest concern right now is to be able to find a job when I graduate in a year. Is it worth sticking with the rails internship?

Any input would be appreciated.
 
No. Move to a paid internship. The start up company might not survive and vb.net/asp.net is still decent experience.

Experience from a well established company is going to look better than working as a intern on a start up company.
 
roaf85 said:
No. Move to a paid internship. The start up company might not survive and vb.net/asp.net is still decent experience.

Experience from a well established company is going to look better than working as a intern on a start up company.
Click to expand...

I concur. Solid experience from an established company will look better then a no name start up looking for free labor.
 
Take the paid one for sure.

I wouldn't even take the unpaid one. You would hate the 3 hour commute, aren't even gauranteed to be developing, and the developer you would be learning from wouldn't even be onsite so it would be hard to learn from him. You would be better off learning something on your own.
 
Take the paid one. Though I'm basing that on just the following factors:
- Commute
- Availability (and type of availability) of more experienced devs

Don't really listen to the "current demand" comments regarding one language versus another. Once you gain solid fundamentals in one language, you can start learning other languages because any fundamentals transfer over -- it's more syntax that you wind up learning.

Good luck!
 
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You will definitely want to go for the paid one. There is most likely going to be more structure and help at the larger company vs the smaller one who will just have to working on whatever comes up as it happens.
 
Alright guys, seems like everyone agrees I should switch. I was leaning towards the closer job as well since the commute just destroys me. Hopefully all goes well on Monday.
 
Also, don't forget that India developers/consulting firms will try to outbid you with over-hyped staff. .net is great since it's usually in-line with big company initiatives (aside from SAP)

What you should also do is move past the developer role and go into MIS because I personally think there's a saturation of developers.

I tell you because I've been in IT for almost 25 years at multi billion CPG companies and I've seen the shift from in-house development staff to offshore.
 
Well, I am currently an MIS major, with a minor in computer science.
My plan was to be a developer for a few years, and then make a transition into database administration. Is there a particular area of MIS you would recommend I pursue? Business IT Analyst?
 
Pursue whatever makes you happy to goto work each morning. Just understand that your competition is global, so focus on increasing your own value -- ie: skillsets (both technical and "soft"), identifying opportunities to contribute improvements to workflows, revenues, daily tasks, etc.
 
I would take the Ruby one if the pay and commute were equal. But in this case it's a no-brainer to take the .Net internship
 
+Plague+ said:
Well, I am currently an MIS major, with a minor in computer science.
My plan was to be a developer for a few years, and then make a transition into database administration. Is there a particular area of MIS you would recommend I pursue? Business IT Analyst?
Click to expand...

Sure. A Business IT Analyst can be a 100 different things though.

Personally I wouldn't worry about any field until you have at least 2-4 years of working experience.

I thought I wanted to be a "Project Manager or Network guy" after my internships, but that proved wrong once I got into the working world.

If you are looking for straight programming out of the gate I would work on getting the best experience possible. You are going to have a lot of companies that want to hire straight up Computer Science people first as the math requirement is usually harder with Computer Science and overall I feel you have smarter people in Computer Science/Engineering programs vs MIS which is business.

I would never ever ever ever take an unpaid internship, even if it is for Google.

Many students don't effectively manage their debt while in college and they get out of college and are high with upwards of 50k in college debt, which is like a 500 dollar payment per month. This usually forces people to take a job right away after college that might not be their first choice or a "get me by job".

Then your employer is going to wonder why you took that job or why you are leaving it so soon.

Good internships are out there. We paid our interns about 40k a year providing they work full time.
 
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