Excessive Free Time at Intership [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How do you say you are bored and need work to do?

When I say excessive I mean 4 hours or more, sometimes the whole 8 hour day. What should I do during this time? I read programming books such as Code Complete and books related to the language we use but I cannot maintain an 8 hour shift of reading. This is a paid internship but being paid for 8 hours of reading/idling is wearing me down.

Answer 1

As an intern, part of what you are supposed to be learning is how the professional work world works. One thing you should understand is that it is almost never in your best interests to have nothing to do and not let your boss know. This ia sign of passivity and is not looked on as a good trait.

If you are finished what you were given to do, go to your boss and ask for more work. Create a list of things you would like to do in your free time if you have any and then suggest one of those things if he has nothing immediately for you to do. Volunteer to do tasks no one else wants to do. Ask to shadow another developer and work at pair programming with him. Ask your boss directly what you should learn to make you more useful to him.

If he never has anything for you to do, that is a huge red flag. For an Intern it means one of several things, either he doesn't think an intern in general can handle the projects he does have or he doesn't think anyone has the time to get an intern up to speed or he has given up on you in particular. If regular employees are working lots of hours and you are not, then you need to be especially wary as he clearly has work. Ask him if he has a problem with your work.

Answer 2

It may be a test.

Seriously, I have done it many times with interns (sometimes, unintentionally): leaving them with no assignments and looking what they will do.

Here's the keywords: attitude and self-motivation.
You should understand that setting your tasks requires an effort of your mentor. Hence, it is an expense for the company.

• Your prior assignment might be small because the mentor might have been unaware on your actual productivity. If you have completed prior assignment, rush to report!
• The mentor may be simply busy with their own assignments. If the mentor told you "do something", do! The simplest idea is to offer your help to a colleague. Even if you can't help at once, you may learn what people discuss, what problems they have, so you can help them in the future.
  UPD As @HLGEM suggested, pair programming seems to be a great idea here;
• Identify a problem and try solving it. Seriously, many software companies leave many things partially solved or not solved at all. Look what can be improved. Never experiment on the live systems, always make a copy to experiment with.

If you prove you are someone who can find the problem, it is good.
If you can solve it, it is even better.
If you accomplished the above without direct instruction, you are self-motivated.