IT Internship Workbook

  Introduction
You're studying towards your BA or BS degree. You're looking forward to graduating in a year or two. You've now secured an internship at a company and are actually working part time in an environment that might eventually provide you with fulltime employment in an information technology career field. Or perhaps you are actually working fulltime in the IT field already. What does this class, coexisting with your current work experience, have to offer you?

Our intent in conducting this class is to make you aware of things about the contemporary IT workplace that can help you understand how it is organized and how it operates, and to give you some ideas of how you can succeed in it. Even more importantly we aim to prepare you for career advancement by providing a background about the workplace not taught in other undergraduate classes. Alexandra Levit, author of a book named They Don't Teach Corporate in College: A Twenty-Something's Guide to the Business World (Career Press, $14.95 list; a few dollars less at Amazon.com) identifies this knowledge as two sets of skills that are not a part of the ordinary academic curriculum: human relations skills, and personal development skills. Human relations skills include diplomacy, cooperation, initiative-taking, and networking. Personal development skills include organization, time management, and attitude adjustment. The web link below gives you a summary of Alexandra's book and some thoughts about it. You should secure a copy of this book and read it all as soon as possible. We will discuss this book in session 3, and you'll be expected to summarize an assigned chapter for the class.

Links you need to explore: