Abbott: Success with Interns

Laura Abbott marks the end of the latest round of open-source internships at Outreachy with a blog post reflecting on "what makes an internship successful," especially as seen in the kernel team's internships. Among Abbott's lessons: "Choose your tasks carefully. Tasks with a specific goal but multiple ways to solve are best. Too open ended tasks can be frustrating for all involved but there should be some chance for decision making. Just giving a list of tasks and exactly how they should be completed isn't good for learning. Give your intern a chance to propose a solution and then review it together." Also: "Speaking of review, code review is a skill. Model how to respond to code review comments. Encourage interns to practice reviewing others code and ask questions as well." That is just a sampling; in total, Abbott lists well over a dozen take-aways from the experience, all worth reading.