
Ask HN: Turned down an internship, did I make a mistake? - obvsudoname44
(This takes place a few weeks back, so imagine it&#x27;s mid fall right now)<p>I haven&#x27;t had much luck getting internship interviews in lower years (doing bachelor&#x27;s degree). But this (academic) year I got a few interviews in the fall and I was happily surprised.<p>Most postings happen in the upcoming months (winter), but there are a few in the fall. Perhaps this is just my school or my maybe that&#x27;s how it is, I hadn&#x27;t started applying this early the previous year.<p>During that busy season the number of postings is suppose to double&#x2F;triple of what it is right now, ofcourse more people apply during that time as well.<p>Right now I have an offer, company is good (7&#x2F;10 IMHO), offer itself is good. But I feel I would be doing more testing&#x2F;debugging&#x2F;QA that actual development, at least for the first half (offer is much longer than 4 months).<p>Do I accept it? Or do I decline and interview some more (gain interviewing skills and get more practice) and hope a more interesting position&#x2F;company&#x27;s offer comes my way?<p>(Back to the present)<p>I declined the offer. Did I make a mistake? I feel as if I made a huge mistake and I&#x27;m now going to be competing with 2 to 3 times as many people (students) for the same pool of internships (albeit a 2 to 3 times larger pool) and maybe end up with no offer and spend rest of spring&#x2F;summer hoping to find something or failing and going back to school the following fall.<p>Had I accepted I could basically lay back, finish up the school year knowing I had a internship secured.<p>But now I also have the motivation to apply more of what I have learned in the past few months during the upcoming holidays and building something bigger&#x2F;better than anything I currently have on my resume&#x2F;portfolio. As well as honing my interviewing skills as best as I can based on my first set of tech interviews.
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mattbgates
I went for a computer technician degree and ended up getting a crappy job
making $7 an hour. I ended up getting fired after one day on the job because I
couldn't ghost a computer from one hard drive to another fast enough for the
computer technician fast enough. I went home and cried my eyes out thinking I
wasn't good enough to be in computers. I left the computer world.

I went on to college and studied psychology. This was over 10 years ago. I am
now making a living as a web developer, a web designer, a programmer, a
software developer, a software engineer, or any title you want to call me. To
put it in blatant terms: I make a living working with computers and I'm very
good at what I do.

We make mistakes. We aren't always good at what we do. We turn down jobs. We
take crappy jobs for crap pay for a few years. We live. We learn. We end up
working for horrible bosses. But eventually, we figure out how to do things,
and eventually, we are smart enough to make life work our way, and work life
to our advantage.

I'm not going to tell you that I'm exactly where I want to be.. but I will
tell you that I am working a job I love.. I am in the process of starting up
my own company. I run a few websites that are very popular and make me some
money on the side. And I'm kept quite busy as a freelancer.

Keep doing what you are doing. Don't feel bummed for turning down an
internship. Sometimes you will have to make choices in your life that don't
always seem right at first.. but they might make sense later on. Maybe you
made a mistake, maybe you didn't. Make it work in your favor and to your
advantage.

I have heard stories of people turning down jobs working for Facebook and
Google to work for smaller companies.. and not regretting it... because that
is just what they wanted to do with their lives. Even take a look at Snapchat
-- turned down Facebook -- who is now cloning Snapchat .. I'm sure they still
don't regret it.

Make your decisions. Do what you gotta do. Live with the consequences.
Sometimes they will be good choices. Sometimes bad. Live and learn. Good luck.

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grx
> But now I also have the motivation to apply more of what I have learned

This should be the key to the answer you are looking for. We all have to make
tough decisions when it comes to working agreements. Don't beat yourself up
because you made a choice in the past. Let the process you went through be an
experience you can use the next time.

