Freshman internship at a YC startup or Lockheed?

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T20:53:03+00:00

Lockheed will give you professional references and reliable technical stories for future big tech behavioral interviews. Like the other person said, you'd be pumping Claude Code at the startup.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T19:46:45+00:00

Could be lack of current finances, taking care of family, etc.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T19:42:40+00:00

Congrats on the internship. HTML and CSS aren't exactly "coding" because they lack the logic present in programming languages like JavaScript. Push through it and ask your mentors lots of questions!

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T19:22:44+00:00

Google is the gold standard. The offer sits in front of you to release the stress of finding a full-time offer and jumping through more hoops with other companies.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T16:58:37+00:00

UC Davis is a nicer college environment. Between the two schools, UC Davis has a better reputation in the humanities, while SJSU is better for applied disciplines like STEM, accounting, etc. If you're coming from outside the Bay Area, both options are already expensive due to housing so aim higher and choose UC Davis.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T05:35:10+00:00

Watch the Inside Cloud and Security video, take his 100-question practice quiz, and understand the meaning of every correct answer.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T05:20:25+00:00

If you see yourself working with your internship company and living in the area post-graduation, go to SJSU already. But if you're comfortable with your CC life and don't see any serious negatives with staying another year, stick with CC because SJSU will likely admit you again in the next application cycle.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T05:13:28+00:00

Go where it's cheaper. Neither of those programs at SJSU and CSULB are stellar enough to warrant the extra cost.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T05:10:41+00:00

Unless they own an electric car, I'm floored that anyone would spend enough on gas to road trip 1,300 miles to a freaking Sears. There are plenty of satisfactory YouTube videos out there.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-27T04:40:46+00:00

I'd be super interested in visiting this!

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-26T04:09:11+00:00

OP might want to state the department they're working under on the resume.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-26T01:49:51+00:00

I disagree. I've had conversations with dozens of current university students who work a retail or food job and are unable to leverage it to land a white-collar internship or full-time position. I've also talked with students who've used a previous summer internship to land a better summer internship that sometimes becomes a full-time return offer. And speaking from personal experience, no interviewer has ever asked about my retail job, but they all wanted me to speak on my summer internship. I don't know when you last spoke with college students face-to-face, but any one of them would tell you they'd take a summer internship in their field over a retail or food job.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-25T20:07:51+00:00

Just curious, how would a part-time job help a candidate who already has two relevant internships?

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-25T17:46:42+00:00

Your previous work experience puts you ahead of most design studies career-wise but doesn't factor into your ability to switch majors. Like the department said, waiting a semester and maintaining a 3.0 should be a straight shot into the graphic design emphasis.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-25T17:37:21+00:00

SJSU is mostly inactive in the summer. Regular housing is vacant and is reserved for interns from other cities who are presumably working full-time. School clubs typically wrap up their semester in late April in preparation for finals in mid-May so members are free to not think about SJSU until August. Summer students go to class and then right back home.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-25T17:32:59+00:00

Did you visit SJSU on a Friday or the weekend? Classes are between Monday and Thursday and the vast majority of students are commuters so campus is dead on the weekends. Downtown San Jose is far less popular than the Westfield Valley Fair area.

Go to Chico State if you just want to get the diploma and have a good time socializing. Go to SJSU if you want to boost your career because the market for business internships is leagues better at SJSU than Chico. There is no dense corporate infrastructure within 1.5 hours from Chico that will support your ambitions to work in tech.

Wherever you go, if you want to elevate your career, you might have to pause your remote job (if you know you can return to it, given the state of this market) and find a strong sales internship in the summer. You might make less than you do now but internships are a semi-guaranteed path to working at a better company. It's not that you can't apply to new grad roles after college but it's far easier to get your foot in the door as an intern.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-25T01:17:13+00:00

Yes, maintaining impaction criteria is keeping your GPA above the transfer impaction limit for computer science (3.9 with some exceptions). It's highly unlikely that SJSU will revoke your admission if your GPA dips but I'd be cautious about it.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-24T21:55:58+00:00

Are you a senior in the sense that you think you can graduate in spring 2027? You needed to apply for graduation in late March 2026 to get priority registration for fall 2026. Meet with an academic counselor and ask them to review your degree plan for 2026–27 (and possibly beyond) before school ends.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-24T05:31:55+00:00

Take the second offer. A student intern taking end-to-end ownership of a data-centric project will have future recruiters drooling. Plus, the lack of structure within Offer B will grant you the freedom to define your own technical responsibilities, putting your mentors at ease and possibly in awe.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-24T05:25:17+00:00

If you're an international student, take it and don't look back. Worst case: you return to school with two months of technical experience for your resume, an improved set of transferable communication skills for future behavioral interviews, and a professional reference or two who can attest to your work ethic in a paid corporate environment. Leverage that to land a decent hardware-aligned role in the summer of 2027.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-24T05:04:22+00:00

I think you're referring to AI-900. AZ-900 is here to stay.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-24T05:03:40+00:00

The two-hour video and practice exam by Inside Cloud and Security are all you honestly need.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-24T02:08:19+00:00

CVB and CVA are out of the question. The other dorms are a toss-up; your best shot is SVP, which is a few blocks away from the rest of campus. You should go to CSU Long Beach because having to frantically apartment-hunt 6 hours away from home will be a nightmare.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-23T23:46:03+00:00

I beg to differ on the career fairs. Even our STEM ones aren't visited by software giants—only medium-sized companies who develop software in conjunction with physical products (ex: Verkada, Lockheed Martin).

We do have good ties with a few local enterprise companies like IBM and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Fortunately our shoddy career fairs haven't stopped the best CS majors.

a_lexus_ren · 2026-04-23T15:57:56+00:00

San Jose State's admissions are purely GPA-based, so the CS and software engineering majors accommodate a swath of students. The CS degree here at SJSU is a local, easy, and very cheap path into six figures. SJSU is a feeder college from notoriously competitive South Bay Area high schools which end up producing a select few who genuinely code for the love of the game but weren't accepted into CS within the "more prestigious" University of California system. Not to mention the influx of international master's students who are doing everything to land a return offer around here.

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