Joining a professional society is a useful way for career development. The membership can provide you with personal network, relevant news, career advices, and even free study courses.
The largest professional societies in the IT sector are the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Both offer student membership, offering to students who are currently studying at a tertiary institution. You are suggested to join any one of them to enjoy early benefits.
Internship is not a mandatory part of the fulltime computing programmes, but it is a good learning experience for students that is highly recommended by the teaching staff.
All internship opportunities are on competitive basis. Applying for an internship and getting the offer is part of the learning experience. Year 3 students should definitely apply for internship or summer jobs to gain experience. Year 1 and 2 students, due to their immaturity in technical ability, might not be as competitive as Year 3 students, but they should also try.
Summer internship that lasts from June to August is suitable for Fulltime Computing Students. In the rare cases, year long internship with renowned enterprises may be approved, but this will prolong the study period.
There are two types of summer internship:
If you have a summer job with a local IT company, then you can consider this as an internship. You will gain valuable work experience. On the other hand, if you are offered to join an internship scheme, then there will be additional benefits such as more structured training and sometimes traveling for overseas schemes.
One-year internship is not recommended because it will prolong your study period by at least one year. According to past graduates, taking up a one-year internship seemed to have gain no particular advantage over summer jobs and internships.
One-year internship requires special approval from the Registry based on conditions such as whether the employer is a renowned company. Many schemes require students to be studying in a programme in which internship is mandatory, which is not the case with Computing programmes.
The following lists some internship schemes relevant to computing.
Job recruitment agents and platforms are places where you can find internship and summer jobs offered by smaller companies and startups.
The SAO provides lots of useful resources for students looking for internship.
SAO List of Internship Opportunities
CV Clinic – how to write an effective resume
Academic staff sometimes receives invitations and information from their friends and acquaintance. Details of these internship opportunities will be sent by emails.
If funding allows, OUHK Computing normally offers one to two intern positions each summer. Invitation to apply will be sent through emails.
何銘禧(Alter)分享他在2016年到上海Ctrip工作的體驗。他獲選參加了數碼港數碼科技實習計劃。
A survey was conducted in October 2017 to find out the internship experience of Year 4 students during their Year 3/4 summer.
A total of 60 reported that they worked in the summer holiday.
Here are the list of companies for those working primarily in IT:
The internship experience may not be satisfactory but it can reflect the real workplace.
Salary should not be considered as important, but this is for your reference.
