This question originally appeared on Quora: Computer Science Internships: I am entering my third year at a top tech college and have not interned at any major tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, or Google. Should I start thinking I'm an idiot and quit everything I have been working on?
Answer by Amin Ariana, Tech Entrepreneur.
A decade ago, I was in the same situation. Everyone I knew had some fancy internship with a big shot company. Competition was fierce.
I decided I had a key insight about engineering that nobody else had: it's better to have a monopoly on being right than a competition on being liked.
I applied instead to work as an intern in a hospital for kids. Everyone else ignored this unsexy employer and spent months hearing back from the hot shots. The hospital contacted me the next day and said "please come and help us. Nobody else would."
For a sum total of a year, I had the perfect freedom to build whatever I wanted at the hospital, while my friends had to perform bottom of the barrel projects at Microsoft and Google. We all learned to be engineers. But I also learned to be a monopoly value provider. I learned to understand my customer uniquely. I became an entrepreneur.
After graduation, it took me one year to get a fulltime position at Microsoft. And three years after that, while I was working at a small company, Google contacted me, asking if I wanted to work there. You read that right, they contacted me. I actually rejected Google twice because I was happy with my job. The third time they contacted me (in six months apart intervals), I took the job. And both sides were happy.
It's been a decade since I decided to go the opposite path from everyone else. Those friends who got internships into Microsoft and Google? They're still working there, pleasing bosses, and deeply afraid of ever trying anything else in life. They clung to an initial success, and competed with others to build a cage around themselves. I let go of it all a few years later, looking for a type of customer to whom I'd matter again. I'm now building a startup company that provides a unique service to a neglected industry, and I write to inspire engineers about the paths not taken.
At its heart, engineering is about making decisions that are right, even if they seem unlikeable and unpopular. If you find yourself living with the results of other peoples' thinking, you're not really the type of engineer that a top company is attracted to.
That's the paradox: successful companies are not attracted to the kind of people who are attracted to the aura of success. They're attracted to people who recognize what's valuable to do, when it's unpopular from everyone else's perspective. So they tend to hire people who have done unconventional things.
The classical image of an engineer is the first person standing under a newly constructed bridge. Do you remember the last person under the same bridge? Sadly, nobody does.
Success is thinking for yourself.
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The Ultimate Engineering Internship - Amin Ariana
Computer Science Internships: I am entering my third year at a top tech college and have not interned at any major tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, or Google. Should I start thinking I'm an idiot and quit everything I have been working on?: originally appeared on Quora: The best answer to any question. Ask a question, get a great answer. Learn from experts and access insider knowledge. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:
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