aya 🇰🇬

10 non-obvious insights from hunting US summer CS internships: 1. Tactical hustle often hides strategic laziness. Mass-applying and grinding LeetCode feel productive, but returns diminish fast. Figure out what you actually want post-grad first, then reverse-engineer what this internship should optimize for. 2. Prestige < fit. A shiny title can still be a trap if it pushes you onto a trajectory you don’t actually want. Optimize for long-term alignment, not LinkedIn aesthetics. 3. Visibility compounds harder than applications. Tweet, ship in public, attend events, DM people. A few strong posts and reach-outs generated more opportunities for me than dozens of cold applications. 4. Direct outreach beats portal spam by an order of magnitude. One founder told me they get 10k resumes per role. Specific, concise cold emails and DMs convert far better than mass-applying. My MSR interview literally came from a DM on RedNote. 5. Cold email rules: Specific (mention their actual work), short (3 paragraphs max), attached (CV/GitHub/portfolio upfront). Don't write essays. 6. Ownership > pedigree. Brand names get you interviews. The thing people actually remember is a project you truly owned end-to-end, especially something you recently built and can defend deeply. 7. Use every interview to update your preferences, not just to pass. Most people optimize for "did I get the offer?" The higher-leverage question is: would I actually want this if I got it? Every conversation is free data about what excites you, what drains you, and which trajectories you'd quietly regret. 8. Startups are a two-way filter. Do a quick 15-min screen before committing to loops. Team quality, funding, users, intern scope, founder vibe: most red flags surface immediately. 9. Don't emotionally commit before the offer exists. You can perform well and still get ghosted, deprioritized, or lose to another candidate. Especially at startups. Treat the process probabilistically. 10. Optionality reduces anxiety. Getting one decent safety offer early changes the entire process psychologically. You evaluate opportunities much more clearly from abundance instead of scarcity. Internship hunting is mostly a temporary game. Don't tie your self-worth to it. Use it to figure out what you actually want, understand your market positioning, and build long-term assets that compound.