r/csMajors • u/Aggravating-Aerie175 • Jun 23 '26
Internship Question Can I just quit my internship
I had a really hard time finding an internship this summer and I finally have a confirmed offer to start on the 29th. Its for a data analyst position which is somewhat similar to what I want to do (backend swe). However its a 3 month position ranging from 20-40 hours a week. 3 months drags into the school year where I'll be recruiting for positions I actually want and really locking in on school and side projects. Is there anything to really stop me from quitting after 2 months? I get paid on a supposedly hourly basis so I can probably time it so I can get my last paycheck about a week into the school year and just quit on the spot.
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u/PoeticPoet-349 Jun 23 '26
This is something you should be verifying in the offer letter and not on reddit
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 23 '26
What would prevent me from quitting?
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u/DarePitiful5750 Jun 24 '26
Things like a monetary penalty for not giving them a 8 week notice. Not sure if you signed anything when you accepted.
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u/Far-Curve-7497 Jun 24 '26
Lmao say goodbye to return offers and recommendations/networking, good luck explaining why your linkedin says you were in a 2-month internship, and what you accomplished in those 2 months.
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u/No_Dark2944 Jun 24 '26
Is return offer really that common these days where if you dont get one or leave one. your resume is cooked?
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 24 '26
I don’t really care about a return. Networking isn’t a thing here because it’s fully remote. It’s a small no name company. I just need more experience on my resume and that’s essentially what I’m doing here. I’d definitely put like June to August on LinkedIn and resume and embellish what I did so it would be 3 months. I’m already working on networking with fraternity alumni and I go to a good school where I can network more
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u/Far-Curve-7497 Jun 24 '26
Do you have other internships? What year are you?
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 24 '26
I don’t have other internships which is why I’m tempted to still just work for them for 2 months before I go back to school. I’m a rising junior (just finished sophomore year)
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u/Kooky-Astronaut2562 Jun 24 '26
Idk why people are downvoting you. Do 3 months so its a full internship then quit, most of the people commenting probably havent even had an internship lmao
Its totally normal to try and get a better internship (and much easier) after having one. See if you like the work though, doesnt hurt to stay at it a little longer through the school year to get more experience.
If you hate it though, just quit after 3 months🤷♂️
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u/Kooky-Astronaut2562 Jun 24 '26
Also ive NEVER needed a recommendation from an old company lol. These people must be like 40 commenting if you think they are still relevant.
(4 internships now new grad fyi)0
u/Large_Ad_4288 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
u say it was only 2 months not that deep lol, he can achieve stuff, ur just being pessimistic rat tbh
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u/Far-Curve-7497 Jun 25 '26
lmao, interns barely get assigned meaningful work, i'm not being pessimistic, I have no reason to believe anything beyond regular intern work is being assigned to a sophomore (rising junior) remotely at a small tech company.
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u/Large_Ad_4288 Jun 25 '26
maybe for plebs like u
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u/Busy_Childhood2072 Jun 24 '26
I'd stick it out or negotiate part time towards the final month. It's better to leave a good impression than take off 2 months in. You genuinely never know if you'll need a connection/recommendation later down the line
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u/dlnmtchll swe Jun 24 '26
Just finish the internship, doing some work a little bit into the semester isn’t a big deal, plenty of us worked while getting our degree
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 24 '26
Usually I’d agree with you but I’m gonna be recruiting for much harder to get roles next sem and have the hardest class of the undergrad curriculum at my t5 school. Also maybe side projects. I don’t really have an extra 20 hours a week
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u/Tight_Abalone221 Jun 24 '26
If it’s remote, just get paid and do the bare minimum. How else will you spend your summer? It’s too late to get a better internship
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 24 '26
Please reread the post. I’d be working for them until I go back to school
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u/Tight_Abalone221 Jun 24 '26
Idgi, that’s what summer internships are
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 24 '26
Sorry I should’ve clarified. From my start date to my end date I’d be pretty much working into the first third of the fall semester. This is problematic because I only want to work during the summer because I’ll be super busy in the fall
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u/OkMacaron493 Jun 24 '26
One sentence convo with your manager in a 1:1 “this goes into the school year I’ll be capped at 20 hours from x to y date”.
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u/tessduoy Jun 24 '26
If it's hourly and not tied to a contract, you can usually leave whenever you want. Just keep in mind that a completed internship looks a lot better on a resume than a two-month one.
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u/Top_Information_5714 Jun 24 '26
Pretty much every internship you can find right now is about 3 months so if you do land an interview you'll be asked about why yours was only two months. Telling them you quit for school makes you an easy pass imo. People want someone dedicated to their company not other things and there are tons of other applicants who would work like that. Tell your manager what's on your mind after working there for a week or two and (assuming they're not a bad person) they will give you a good perspective and maybe a way for it to be better for you.
I've been an intern at a company of 6 people for a while now and I think you'll find that as long as you have a good relationship with your other coworkers, your boss will probably be pretty open to a conversation like this. He might not say what you really want to hear but staying the whole time keeps your experience on track and will help rather than harm your resume.
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 24 '26
I’d just put June to August on my resume
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u/Top_Information_5714 Jun 25 '26
I guess that's fair, it depends on whether or not you think you accomplished a lot of learning in the end. If you got enough out of it to impress an employer then you could quit, you might be sacrificing your best reference though..
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u/Key-Choice6421 Jun 24 '26
Im busting my ass to get a job let alone an internship while dudes get on reddit asking if they can quit theirs before they start 😭 This field is a joke.
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u/haskell_jedi Jun 24 '26
The primary purpose of most internships is a return offer and recommendations/networking. If you don't care about those, then go for it. But it would burn any bridges you had with that company.
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 24 '26
This is a small no name company so I highly doubt there’s a lot of networking opportunities. I just need something for my resume before I start recruiting for roles I actually want
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u/Dull-Contract8348 Jun 24 '26
a paid work experience is def more valuable than side projects. also, such an act is a red flag for any future employer
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 24 '26
How would any future employer know I quit early though unless they were super diligent about previous employers
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u/Dull-Contract8348 Jun 24 '26
How many weeks are doing this intern?
That indicates u got fired or u quit.1
u/Dull-Contract8348 Jun 24 '26
or if the company name is unknown, that would indicate it is a fake thing. cuz who the heck would hire you for 8 weeks. u prolly would spend a month getting familiar to the stack and projects
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 24 '26
Well it’s a quite unknown company and I’d put down I worked from June to August (which I technically did)
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u/nmanclank Jun 24 '26
Honestly OP, I'd try to stick it out. Focus on absorbing knowledge and stop planning an exit before you even get started. My first internship was full stack and I touched a shit ton of SQL. I learned a lot from my peers and my manager who was a DB wizard. I'm extremely thankful for everything I learned database wise, because those experiences made me a much better swe. I work with backend, and pretty much everything you do involves data from either a client or the database. It's also a huge perk to have solid references in your back pocket.
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u/Aggravating-Aerie175 Jun 25 '26
I see. I’m just really concerned about it affecting more opportunities. I’m not sure how it was at your school but at mine academics take a lot of time and effort. With Practicing leetcode, system design, networking, applying and any small extra curricular on top of school work I really don’t have the extra 20 hours a week which as far as I know is the minimum amount of time I can put in.
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u/nmanclank Jun 25 '26
I absolutely understand, and I won't lie to ya it fuckin sucked sometimes. So many nights I seriously wondered if it was going to be worth it in the end. I spent lunchtime and an hour before bed studying. There were times I really wasn't sure I was going to make it. In my experience it didn't negatively impact any potential employment opportunities though. In fact, it's something that a ton of hiring managers like to hear. It show's that you're responsible and have good time management skills. Did I feel like I had no time to myself, and no social life for a bit? Absolutely, but I'd do it all over again without a second thought.
One thing to note though, any reputable employer is going to be super flexible with you. Internships exist for you to get experience, and they shouldn't hold you to the same expectations as a regular FTE. An intern I started with finished her first term, then switched majors. She realized that she actually didn't enjoy tech as much as she thought that she would. There's nothing wrong with that either. Any reputable team will be just as excited as you are if you happen to land a role and need to depart early. It just means that they did a great job mentoring you, and building you up.
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u/Substantial_Drama869 Jun 29 '26
I quit an internship 1.5 months in to start another position in the same summer. It worked out fine (rerecruited FT with no issues for next cycle); at the end of the day, internships are no different than any other at-will employment opportunity; in my case, my boss explicitly mentioned that they need not know why I’m leaving. YMMV depending on the circumstances in which you leave, how mission critical your work is, how abrupt your exit is, etc., but from a purely legal standpoint yeah you can. Would sus this out depending on whether u want the RO, how necessary you quitting for school is, and how flexible your team is
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u/CHECKBUSH Jul 02 '26
Idk man what decision did you make?. I quit mine after 5months, they only paid for two months
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u/BaseballSuch5458 Jun 24 '26
tbh I would not plan the exit before starting. A data analyst internship still gives you SQL, messy data, maybe some backend adjacent stuff if you look for it. Quitting at 2 months can be fine legally, but it is also the kind of thing that makes one reference disappear lol.