Computer science field needs to allow students to count an internship for coursework or let them get payed for doing field session
It's ridiculous that it's illegal to not pay an intern for work that a company profits off of and the computer science department has the audacity to have students do work for a company and not only not pay them, but charge them for it and ban companies from paying them. The department recommends to take it during the junior year, when most students would get their best internship. I, and many people I know, have lost internship offers after companies learned that we need to do field session. Mines charges over $3,000 to in state students and over $5,000 to out of state students for the privilege of making the school and a company money. Not only that, but internships pay around $21/hour, so with the opportunity cost of not doing an internship field session costs a student about $8,000. I've talked to many recruiters and they do not value field session nearly as much as an internship. This course is a scam on students to squeeze more money out of them.
Hello! Thank you for voicing your concern to us! After many discussions, it appears that the computer science field session will begin to be offered during both the summer and the fall semesters beginning in 2019! This allows students to have the option of whatever works best with their schedules! More information will be coming in spring 2019 regarding the details of this change. Hopefully this comes as good news!
Best, USG
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Anonymous commented
I just want to say that many health feilds like nutrition require a year long internship that they must pay for, and do not receive compensation for. This is a common practice, and while maybe wrong, this is not a special occurrence limited to Mines.
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Anonymous commented
I think it would be really beneficial for the CS department to give students the option to take field session during the school year - something similar to a senior design course. I say this because some scholarships that students regularly receive during the school year do not apply in the summer. I also think it would be beneficial to have this option because it would allow students who want a summer internship more opportunity to do that. The CS flowchart is very flexible, so I think this could be easily integrated into the curriculum.
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Demonna Wade commented
I completely agree with Al Cox's statement. The Computer Science Field session is only beneficial to students who do not have any internship experience. If you understand how Computer Science Field session is set up, then you understand the main people profiting is the companies, the school ( tuition and fee payments), and students who do not have any internship experience. If you are a student who worked hard to get an internship, which requires effort in and outside of the classroom, you should not be penalized for taking charge of your academic and professional career. Like Al mentioned, companies are very hesitant to work with students around field session because your productivity would not match a student who is able to commit to the full-time hours required during majority of internships. Field session requires 32-40 hours a week to complete the assignments and the project work given by the company. This leave you no time to work at your internship. Also, with field session being 6 weeks and most internship being 10 -12 weeks, that leave you only 4-6 weeks of full-time internship experience. In that time, you can barley get anything done after you have gone through company orientation, initial training, projects briefings, etc. Other than the experience lost, the economic loss of field session takes a toll on students who barely have the economic means to attend Mines. Summer is where students work to save money for the next academic school year. There is a double economic negative in taking field session. The previous post have already examined the monetary loss of field session that I do not need to restate. My overall point is that Computer Science Field session only helps individuals that have no internship experience. It hinders students who have worked hard to get an internship!
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Anonymous commented
I think you should be grateful for the opportunity to be able to work with a real client on a real-world problem. Every major has to do Field Session and Computer Science gets actual, relevant, industry experience with top companies. If you think your project is of minimal benefit to your future and your resume, it’s probably because of the amount of work (or lack there of) that you chose to put into in. You CAN take it your sophomore year if you plan ahead and you CAN take it after graduation so no one is scamming you out of a money for a course that is required for all majors.
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Anonymous commented
Agreed, it is very easy to get a CS internship currently so field session is of minimal benefit for most CS students. If anything, it should be a 3 hour class not 6 hours so that students wouldn't have to pay the school fees in addition to tuition. Field session is simply evidence of rent seeking behavior. For this reason alone, I would not be able to recommend the Mines CS department.
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Anonymous commented
Wouldn't it just be better to require students to have an internship instead?
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Trent Murchison commented
I agree. After making it into multiple interviews with companies, they are not willing to work around field session for internships. I am supposed to take field session this summer and since I'm an out of state student it will cost me around $7,500 for 6 weeks of work that ultimately doesn't matter since the company will take our names off of the project. This along with trying to find an internship for only 6 weeks just hurts the CS students coming out of Mines.