This is the story about how I began my search for a tech industry internship as a social science PhD student in my second year. If you are looking for my guide for getting an internship, that’s over here. Where to Begin? Build Your Network I began this process with a fair amount working for and against me. As a first-generation college student, I didn’t inherit valuable personal and professional networks in academia or industry. Simply put, I didn’t know anyone and no one knew me. On the other hand, I attend an Ivy-League school with strong connections with industry and a litany of students who have interned. Given this, I knew if I could focus on networking and impressing the hiring committees in interviews that I would have a strong shot at landing a position. ...

This is a deceptively easy question. It’s the person who got the grant funding to support the project! Or is it the person who did the most work? Or is it the person who wrote most of the paper? Perhaps the person who designed the research collection and methods? Fairly quickly this question gets muddled. This doesn’t even get into the intergroup politics of deciding on a set of criteria (if this happens) and then figuring out an equitable way to discuss authorship ordering. ...