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I have not yet begun my secondary education (I'm still in high-school and have about 1 year to go), and I was wondering if I would have any chance at finding an internship in IT, such as a developer or engineer.

I was considering looking for one in the UK or Netherlands (I go there for 3/4 months). I also do not speak fluent English yet (in b1/b2 level or "Independent Speaker", still working to improve it) and didn't know if whether this would be a problem.

I have some knowledge about programming (I'm not a newbie), and I've made a number of small projects and a few medium sized (simple communicator with gui(javafx) etc. ).

Is there any chance that a high school student would be selected for an internship?

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  • Just to make it clear: you are not currently in the Netherlands? Dutch is not your native language?
    – Carson63000
    Jan 8, 2013 at 23:11
  • no :) Dutch is not my native language.
    – telecom
    Jan 9, 2013 at 6:24
  • 3
    Hi @telecom I've edited your question to try and make it more suitable for this site, and have voted to reopen it. Feel free to edit it further, or roll back the changes if I've made a mistake in my edits :)
    – Rachel
    Jan 9, 2013 at 17:22

2 Answers 2

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Well, let's explore this some more for a moment:

  1. Age eligibility - Would you be old enough to be able to have an internship in these countries? Some countries may have laws against child labor that may apply if you are too young, as I doubt any company would hire a 5 year old for development.
  2. Work eligibility - Would these internships be paid and if so, what work permits may be required by the company at what cost and how is this handled? If you are going to another country, this may be an issue to some degree.
  3. Do you have contacts to assist you in getting a position or should the companies be coming to you for some reason?

I'd likely think there are more than a few hurdles that I'd be sure of getting past. While language can be an issue, I'd likely put it as a second or third-level barrier here where the easiest way around it is to find people that speak whatever native tongue you do have that work in IT.

Overall, I'd consider it an interesting idea to explore further. In a way, I could see this working out well or going disastrously though in either case it is worth knowing what barriers you'd face in trying to get something somewhere.

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  • ok, thanks, maybe i find something in my county :)
    – telecom
    Jan 9, 2013 at 6:52
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I'm guessing answers to this will be very location specific. I live in the US, and it is not uncommon for high schoolers to have summer internships.

However, these are not usually the standard internships that college kids and later are trying to get into. We often have programs specifically tailored to giving high school kids exposure. For example, when I was in high school I applied for an internship through an engineering society and ended up working at Intel for the summer.

Like JB King mentioned, you want as few hurdles as possible because the environment is already competitive. If you need a visa or similar to work in a country, I'd be surprised if a company would sponsor you for a high school internship.

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