A little background: I'm part of a highly credited internship program. For a fair amount of students who are accepted, this is a 2 year program. Each internship is 6 months long and they are at different companies. The student does not get to pick what company they go to, instead, the companies bid on students.

My first internship was great, they had a great intern program and I learned a lot through the company and my mentor.

I am currently a third of the way through my second internship at a fairly large company. This internship started right after I graduated. So far, this internship is less than ideal. My "mentor" is my supervisor who is also in charge of 40 other people. My "mentor" and everybody around me have no idea how to do the work I am currently doing. I have gotten a fair amount of praise for the work I have done so far (application development), but that is because I was using tools and applying skills that I learned how to do at my last internship. I have moved onto more technical stuff (web development), but none of this stuff was taught in school. The problem is that since I have no mentor who I can ask technical questions, I can get stuck for long periods of time trying to figure out something that should be rather simple.

In general, the internship program is lousy. My title is intern, but I am being treated as a full employee. The only thing I am learning here is about the industry and what my specific department does. Everything else (90-95%), the technical side of things, I have learned by teaching myself. There is only one person in my building who I can ask about the stuff that I am doing, and he is on the other side of the building and difficult to work with (he doesn't like the idea of an intern doing work that in theory should be his job, he feels I am not qualified to do this work, etc.).

The result of having virtually nobody to ask my technical questions about puts me in a terrible mood too many times. It doesn't help that there is pressure from higher-ups that are eagerly waiting for my work to be completed because it will be a tremendous help to many people.

Question: Would it be appropriate to talk to my mentor/supervisor about the terrible internship program? My supervisor is a good guy and we have a good relationship, but as an intern, I am not getting the guidance I should be getting for the work I am doing. The bar was set high from the beginning and although I have been fine so far, it is becoming more apparent that I might not be able to reach the bar all on my own. I'm afraid that if I bring this up this late into the internship, it will make me look weak and burn bridges with him (since I've been great so far). I just want to start looking for other work and leave this internship completely instead of dealing with this for another few months.

A little background: I'm part of a highly credited internship program. For a fair amount of students who are accepted, this is a 2 year program. Each internship is 6 months long and they are at different companies. The student does not get to pick what company they go to, instead, the companies bid on students.

My first internship was great, they had a great intern program and I learned a lot through the company and my mentor.

I am currently a third of the way through my second internship at a fairly large company. This internship started right after I graduated. So far, this internship is less than ideal. My "mentor" is my supervisor who is also in charge of 40 other people. My "mentor" and everybody around me have no idea how to do the work I am currently doing. I have gotten a fair amount of praise for the work I have done so far (application development), but that is because I was using tools and applying skills that I learned how to do at my last internship. I have moved onto more technical stuff (web development), but none of this stuff was taught in school. The problem is that since I have no mentor who I can ask technical questions, I can get stuck for long periods of time trying to figure out something that should be rather simple.

In general, the internship program is lousy. My title is intern, but I am being treated as a full employee. The only thing I am learning here is about the industry and what my specific department does. Everything else (90-95%), the technical side of things, I have learned by teaching myself. There is only one person in my building who I can ask about the stuff that I am doing, and he is on the other side of the building and difficult to work with (he doesn't like the idea of an intern doing work that in theory should be his job, he feels I am not qualified to do this work, etc.).

The result of having virtually nobody to ask my technical questions about puts me in a terrible mood too many times. It doesn't help that there is pressure from higher-ups that are eagerly waiting for my work to be completed because it will be a tremendous help to many people.

Question: Would it be appropriate to talk to my mentor/supervisor about the terrible internship program? My supervisor is a good guy and we have a good relationship, but as an intern, I am not getting the guidance I should be getting for the work I am doing. The bar was set high from the beginning and although I have been fine so far, it is becoming more apparent that I might not be able to reach the bar all on my own. I'm afraid that if I bring this up this late into the internship, it will make me look weak and burn bridges with him (since I've been great so far).

Edit: It would probably make more sense to clear a couple misconceptions. This is a paid internship. Although pay isn't great for my field, I'm still getting paid for an internship, which is nice. My general perception is that with an internship, you are becoming familiar with work in your related field while having a mentor of sorts to kind of guide you during that time. Guidance differs for each person, some need more than others. I'm not saying I need a ton of guidance, but having virtually no guidance is what is the problem. I believe the guidance part is a big thing that sets an internship apart from a full time employee.

A little background: I'm part of a highly credited internship program. For a fair amount of students who are accepted, this is a 2 year program. Each internship is 6 months long and they are at different companies. The student does not get to pick what company they go to, instead, the companies bid on students.

My degree is BIS - pretty much a hybrid of Business and Computer Science, leaning more towards Business. My first internship was great, they had a great intern program and I learned a lot through the company and my mentor.

I am currently a third of the way through my second internship at a fairly large company. This internship started right after I graduated. So far, this internship is less than ideal. My "mentor" is my supervisor who is also in charge of 40 other people. My "mentor" and everybody around me have no idea how to do the work I am currently doing. I have gotten a fair amount of praise for the work I have done so far (application development), but that is because I was using tools and applying skills that I learned how to do at my last internship. I have moved onto more technical stuff (web development), but none of this stuff was taught in school. The problem is that since I have no mentor who I can ask technical questions, I can get stuck for long periods of time trying to figure out something that should be rather simple.

In general, the internship program is lousy. My title is intern, but I am being treated as a full employee. The only thing I am learning here is about the industry and what my specific department does. Everything else (90-95%), the technical side of things, I have learned by teaching myself. There is only one person in my building who I can ask about the stuff that I am doing, and he is on the other side of the building and difficult to work with (he doesn't like the idea of an intern doing work that in theory should be his job, he feels I am not qualified to do this work, etc.).

The result of having virtually nobody to ask my technical questions about puts me in a terrible mood too many times. It doesn't help that there is pressure from higher-ups that are eagerly waiting for my work to be completed because it will be a tremendous help to many people.

Question: Would it be appropriate to talk to my mentor/supervisor about the terrible internship program? My supervisor is a good guy and we have a good relationship, but as an intern, I am not getting the guidance I should be getting for the work I am doing. The bar was set high from the beginning and although I have been fine so far, it is becoming more apparent that I might not be able to reach the bar all on my own. I'm afraid that if I bring this up this late into the internship, it will make me look weak and burn bridges with him (since I've been great so far). I just want to start looking for other work and leave this internship completely instead of dealing with this for another few months.

A little background: I'm part of a highly credited internship program. For a fair amount of students who are accepted, this is a 2 year program. Each internship is 6 months long and they are at different companies. The student does not get to pick what company they go to, instead, the companies bid on students.

My first internship was great, they had a great intern program and I learned a lot through the company and my mentor.

I am currently a third of the way through my second internship at a fairly large company. This internship started right after I graduated. So far, this internship is less than ideal. My "mentor" is my supervisor who is also in charge of 40 other people. My "mentor" and everybody around me have no idea how to do the work I am currently doing. I have gotten a fair amount of praise for the work I have done so far (application development), but that is because I was using tools and applying skills that I learned how to do at my last internship. I have moved onto more technical stuff (web development), but none of this stuff was taught in school. The problem is that since I have no mentor who I can ask technical questions, I can get stuck for long periods of time trying to figure out something that should be rather simple.

In general, the internship program is lousy. My title is intern, but I am being treated as a full employee. The only thing I am learning here is about the industry and what my specific department does. Everything else (90-95%), the technical side of things, I have learned by teaching myself. There is only one person in my building who I can ask about the stuff that I am doing, and he is on the other side of the building and difficult to work with (he doesn't like the idea of an intern doing work that in theory should be his job, he feels I am not qualified to do this work, etc.).

The result of having virtually nobody to ask my technical questions about puts me in a terrible mood too many times. It doesn't help that there is pressure from higher-ups that are eagerly waiting for my work to be completed because it will be a tremendous help to many people.

Question: Would it be appropriate to talk to my mentor/supervisor about the terrible internship program? My supervisor is a good guy and we have a good relationship, but as an intern, I am not getting the guidance I should be getting for the work I am doing. The bar was set high from the beginning and although I have been fine so far, it is becoming more apparent that I might not be able to reach the bar all on my own. I'm afraid that if I bring this up this late into the internship, it will make me look weak and burn bridges with him (since I've been great so far). I just want to start looking for other work and leave this internship completely instead of dealing with this for another few months.