Ask HN: Have you ever done an apprenticeship? How was it?

I used to work for a company that had students come in for a few months. In most areas they were treated as glorified secretaries. In my group we were so short handed on developers that I had them do real work. In my time I had 10. 4 were offered and took jobs, one would have been offered a job but he never applied, 1 was a complete waste (did not speak English), one never finished his degree.

From a team lead perspective I loved working with the kids because they challenged me. They made me validate what I knew. Although they would accept 'because I say', the next week they asked again. They also took a lot of my time, and if I did not meet with anyone of them regularly they tended to go sideways and generate crap. In hindsight, each day I should have spent 15 mins with each.

As for the students, it provides a good grounding in what real life is. Warning, do not do more than 6 months without 6 months of schooling. We had a few who started working full time, and part time with school. Many of those never graduated. When layoffs came the students were early victims.

My boss really liked the students because they did not come out of his budget. HR paid for the, as they saw it as a recruiting tool.

yeah, that was my first commercial experience. It was paid one, not much, but still a nice addition to my wallet while being an University student.

They even not required me to show every day in the office but I did anyway. I've learned there many things I haven't used before (or got to know at the University) like git, open source contributions/culture, getting used to linux terminal etc.

I think it had very significant impact on where and who I am today.

It was a great summer.