Keep a work life balance. With as exciting as the work is, it's very easy to dive in and spend all your free time just doing more work.
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Mechanical Engineering Intern
June - August 2019 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
The overall environment was very positive as the employees are all very passionate about their projects. I received a lot of support from other employees at JPL.
What I wish was different
Advice
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Mechanical engineering undergraduate student III
January - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
I got to contribute real work and analysis to a large mission.
What I wish was different
Advice
Meet with as many people as you can.
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Avionics Engineering Intern
June - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
Great work culture and environment, all employees super happy to work there and excited about their jobs
What I wish was different
Advice
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Software Developer Intern
May - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
Being exposed to a ton of awesome space stuff and having a very active mentor.
What I wish was different
I wish I had learned more about other specialized computer science careers that jpl hires for.
Advice
Explore tons of tours
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Testbed Operator
May - July 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
The culture of the employees, as well as their willingness tos press knowledge about the things their working on and their experiences.
What I wish was different
I wish I could have spent a longer time to really explore all of the different projects JPL had going on.
Advice
The networking opportunity as well as the amount of intelligence in that space is phenomenal., and would recommend anyone to go work there if the opportunity arose.
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Geochemical Laboratory Intern
June - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
Excellent experience and insight working on projects relevant to my interests.
What I wish was different
I wish I could stay for a longer term!
Advice
There are always more setbacks than successes, so keep at it because there is always something to learn from and build on.
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Research Intern
June - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
Flexibility to research topics I want to focus on even if it isn't directly related to the team mission, so long as it can benefit our understanding of the problem space.
What I wish was different
More cross-team interactions would have been nice.
Advice
Make sure to attend talks given by other teams! It's a great resource and space to hear about all the cool stuff happening at JPL.
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Systems Engineer
May 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
The location in Pasadena was great. There was so much to do on the weekends and I got to experience LA more than I do during the semester. Also, there are hundreds of interns at JPL in the summer so it was easy to make friends and have people to hang out with outside of work.
What I wish was different
I wish that I had been placed in a group that had more interns near me, or had asked for a more collaborative project. I felt like I was doing a lot of work alone in my cube and although I had intern friends having none of them work near me made for some boring days when I didn't have much work assigned.
Advice
JPL is a great place to learn about yourself and the world. Taking advantage of all of the talks and tours that they offer on lab is a key way to figure out whether JPL is a good fit for you. Also, everyone is so willing to talk to you about what they are currently doing and the path that they took to get there, so reach out to people and discover all of the cool things that are going on!
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Intern
June - August 2017 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
Amazing place to learn and grow.
What I wish was different
Advice
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System Integration and Test Intern
June - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
The mission, the work environment, the challenging problems, and the amazing engineers that work at JPL.
What I wish was different
Advice
Be open to learn, ask questions, be curious, seek help, and do not be afraid to speak up!
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Finance Intern
May - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
The people are very friendly and supportive- great mentoring atmosphere along with tons of opportunities to learn about aerospace!
What I wish was different
Advice
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System Engineer Intern
May - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
The community of JPL is so accepting. Everyone would take time out of their day to help me out
What I wish was different
I wish I would have taken the time to network more
Advice
Don’t be afraid to ask questions and speak your mind.
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Engineering Intern
May - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
Challenging, got to tour many different labs and meet tons of people.
What I wish was different
Advice
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Electrical Engineering Intern
May - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
The technical challenges that came with making space probes. Most of the work had several challenges that only outside the box creative solutions could solve
What I wish was different
N/A
Advice
Thinking outside the box can really open the doors to problems that seem daunting
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Summer Intern
April - August 2018 • Los Angeles, CA
What I liked
The atmosphere is really great. Everyone is friendly, and loves telling you about what they do. There a weekly activities and talks open to both interns and full time employees. Overall a great place to work.
What I wish was different
Nothing
Advice
Be friendly and don't hesitate to reach out to people you find interesting.
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Mechanical Engineering Intern
June - August 2016 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
Excellent meaningful work, with decent autonomy and wonderful mentoring by passionate engineers. Great work-life balance in addition to cool intern-specific company events.
What I wish was different
The stipend that interns receive is on the low end of the payscale for an engineering internship.
Advice
To quote my mentor verbatim, interning for JPL is "like drinking out of a firehose." There will be so much that you learn in such a short amount of time, but it's all worth it.
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Mechanical Engineering Intern
January - June 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
The connections I made were incredible and I had the opportunity to gain experience in a wide variety of projects. Everyone was so passionate about their roles and the work was incredibly rewarding!
What I wish was different
Advice
Don't be afraid to go out of your way to seek additional projects which you find interesting and exciting, and to meet people on different projects.
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Mechanical Engineer Intern
June - August 2018 • Pasadena, CA
What I liked
It was a learning internship so there was a lot of room to grow and I did not have to do tedious tasks like a lot of interns do but got to work on a real project that would benefit the other members of my team as well.
What I wish was different
My mentor was very busy so he was not extremely involved in answering questions and also was very vague about what my assignment was.
Advice
I would say if you work at a company like JPL it is super important to take advantage of your environment and network and ask as many questions as possible and really utilize your resources.
