Intern Testimonials
Hear straight from the interns themselves on what an internship at SCS is really like!
2023 Summer Interns
Ambrose Cavalier - Christendom College - Philosophy
~ returning intern ~
~ returning intern ~
SCS is not your average software company. One might assume that a summer internship with a 40+ year old company that supplies newspaper publishers with back-end applications would be a summer of poring through thousands of lines of dusty database routines and clunky UI code. Now, granted, a summer at SCS might involve some of that, but it definitely isn't what you'll remember from your SCS experience. You'll remember the fun conversations at lunch, the organic teamwork with other employees, and the awesome new skills you acquired.
This was my fourth summer interning at SCS, and it's hard to express how much I have enjoyed it. I do computer stuff in all sorts of areas in my free time - web apps, game development, WebGL, parser design, 3D modeling, cartography, natural language processing - you name it, basically. Before my internship with SCS, I would have never believed that it would let me flex my coding muscles in all these domains at once. But it has, and so working at SCS is almost like getting paid to have fun. If you want a summer job that will engage all your skills and then some, SCS is the place for you!
This was my fourth summer interning at SCS, and it's hard to express how much I have enjoyed it. I do computer stuff in all sorts of areas in my free time - web apps, game development, WebGL, parser design, 3D modeling, cartography, natural language processing - you name it, basically. Before my internship with SCS, I would have never believed that it would let me flex my coding muscles in all these domains at once. But it has, and so working at SCS is almost like getting paid to have fun. If you want a summer job that will engage all your skills and then some, SCS is the place for you!
Cyrus Desai - Southern Lehigh High School
~ returning intern ~
~ returning intern ~
I have nothing but good things to say about my time at SCS. As a summer intern for two years, I greatly benefited from working alongside experienced developers, developing modern technology, and designing new products. Despite what some may think about the current state of newspapers, SCS really pushes the envelope when it comes to the software they develop. I spent my time working on totally new projects built with innovative and modern technology, giving me incredibly useful experience that I can apply to the rest of my career as a developer.
SCS gives their interns a lot of freedom to direct the projects they work on. Interns are encouraged to take charge of projects and are tasked with making important design decisions. I felt like the senior developers were my peers, as we worked together to create new products. Overall, the environment at SCS was incredibly welcoming. I always had tons of fun at our picnics, company-wide poker games, and daily backgammon games during lunch. I would absolutely recommend an internship at SCS for any software developer looking to immerse themselves in a high-tech, collaborative, and fun environment!
SCS gives their interns a lot of freedom to direct the projects they work on. Interns are encouraged to take charge of projects and are tasked with making important design decisions. I felt like the senior developers were my peers, as we worked together to create new products. Overall, the environment at SCS was incredibly welcoming. I always had tons of fun at our picnics, company-wide poker games, and daily backgammon games during lunch. I would absolutely recommend an internship at SCS for any software developer looking to immerse themselves in a high-tech, collaborative, and fun environment!
Sam Desai - Southern Lehigh High School
~ returning intern ~
~ returning intern ~
My internships at SCS have been incredibly valuable. The incredible people here have allowed me to learn so much more beyond just software development. I've learned how a business operates and grows efficiently, how to work on a team, and the steps to bring a product idea to life. I've had the privilege of joining other fantastic interns to work with modern technologies and frameworks in creative ways. I had the freedom to explore 3D modeling and VR, which unexpectedly became a huge part of my job the last two summers. I definitely wouldn't have been able to find this experience at another company. This past summer, I had the opportunity to take a deep dive into backend web development, learning how reactive websites are developed and structured.
Now, as a college freshman at the University of Michigan, my experience has proved to be invaluable. My internships have helped me figure out what areas of computer science I'm most passionate about pursuing in the future. When I've spoken to employers, I already have a variety of relevant knowledge that makes me a competitive applicant. This past summer at SCS, I experimented with Python to create computer vision programs using AI. This experience allowed me to land a research position working with researchers at UofM and Vanderbilt University to use AI for document processing.
Now, as a college freshman at the University of Michigan, my experience has proved to be invaluable. My internships have helped me figure out what areas of computer science I'm most passionate about pursuing in the future. When I've spoken to employers, I already have a variety of relevant knowledge that makes me a competitive applicant. This past summer at SCS, I experimented with Python to create computer vision programs using AI. This experience allowed me to land a research position working with researchers at UofM and Vanderbilt University to use AI for document processing.
Nicholas Bull - Southern Lehigh High School
During my internship at SCS, what I learned most was how to work as a team to finish a programming project, and working in a professional work environment also helped me understand what is expected at a company when I finish my education. I appreciated how the interns were treated as regular employees and really felt part of the team. I really enjoyed it when I was challenged to come up with a solution to a problem, like the camera fishtank project, instead of just implementing a known solution which made me learn more and come up with solutions. The fishtank camera was also interesting because I was working on it while I was learning and improving my Typescript/Javascript skills. I also liked working on the waterfall diagram because I was able to solve problems that were challenging, such as getting the cursor to scroll vertically and adding live ads to the diagram.
Nathan Moore - Southern Lehigh High School
I worked on a few different projects over the summer, but the main ones were Scoop debugging, the Camera Fish for Skeyenet, and the Waterfall Diagram for Skeyenet. To work on these, I had to learn quite a bit about JavaScript, but I also learned some coding skills. For one, I didn't realize what reactive libraries were until I had worked on the Fishtank and I realized that it updates everything related to what was changed. Another one is that I learned how to make actual webpages, since Scoop was basically a website in and of itself.but the most important lesson was that I learned how to parse through and create complex programs, a skill that I didn't really have before.
2019 Summer Intern
Ethan Hartley - Northampton Community College - Computer Science
~ now a full-time SCS employee ~
~ now a full-time SCS employee ~
While I have always enjoyed problem solving, I wasn't able to dive into programming until college. Earlier, in high school, the closest I could get was math courses. Past high school, when I got to college, I was finally able to take computer science courses. Later, when I graduated with an Associate Degree from Northampton Community College in May of 2019, I decided it was time to look for a programming job and escape my current position at customer service for Giant. After searching for a bit, I discovered SCS, sent in my resume, and waited. Yearning for a response, it wasn't too long until I heard back from SCS, inviting me to an interview. Previously, I had only had one interview, so I was quite nervous, and a few weeks later, I unfortunately got a call explaining that they had filled their full time positions; however, they offered me one of their summer internships. Of course, I gladly accepted. Knowing it was my first day, I didn't expect much, but after a short meeting regarding onboarding paperwork, I sat at my desk and started on a set of introductory programs. Encouraging me along the way was Nick, a recently-hired full time developer, I was able to work through these programs and learn the in house programming language for SCS. Racing along, I was finished with the programs on day three and started reading up on the documentation. Day four: I wanted to actually get my hands on some more code, so I went to ask what I should do next. Unfortunately, nobody was there, so I went to see what Nick was working on. Rather than send me away, he was kind enough to explain what he was working on: a customer had discovered a bug caused by a global variable. I sat down with him, and we went through the code looking for all the instances we would need to fix. Not expecting it, I got called into Mr. Cichelli's office around day five. Getting a bit nervous, I sat down and he mentioned he was about to take a risk and my internship may be coming to a close...
Letting a few moments pass, he continued by saying the other employees seemed to like me. Unbeknown to me, he was about to offer me a full time position at SCS. Not wanting to rush into it, I decided to look over the offer and paperwork at home. Confident I would enjoy it at SCS, I signed the letter and returned it to Mr. Cichelli a few days later, accepting the full time position. Hard at work, I have been learning more and more about SCS and programming. Squishing the first bug with Nick was the start, and we continued working together on other small projects for few weeks. Once we got a feel for what we were doing, we were assigned our own projects. Rewardingly, all of these projects directly affected the customers of SCS, which is a rewarding feeling. Recently, one of the newer customers of SCS needed to import all previous ads into our online tracking program. Yielding the new program allowed me to not only learn more about the in house programming language, but I got to learn about another language, XSLT, which would be used to convert XML files into our in house format.
Despite being at SCS for only a few months, I have learned a lot about programming. Also, I have been exposed to a variety of programming languages, which keeps every day at work interesting. Naturally, I enjoy knowing that rather than menial tasks, I have been working on programs that directly impact our customers since day one (technically four)... Lately, I have really enjoyed working at SCS, and I really enjoy the environment of the office. Overall, everyone is kind, knowledgeable, and always ready to help, and that's just during working hours. Lunch time is when the real fun starts... (Get an internship, or read the first letter of each sentence to ruin the surprise.)
Letting a few moments pass, he continued by saying the other employees seemed to like me. Unbeknown to me, he was about to offer me a full time position at SCS. Not wanting to rush into it, I decided to look over the offer and paperwork at home. Confident I would enjoy it at SCS, I signed the letter and returned it to Mr. Cichelli a few days later, accepting the full time position. Hard at work, I have been learning more and more about SCS and programming. Squishing the first bug with Nick was the start, and we continued working together on other small projects for few weeks. Once we got a feel for what we were doing, we were assigned our own projects. Rewardingly, all of these projects directly affected the customers of SCS, which is a rewarding feeling. Recently, one of the newer customers of SCS needed to import all previous ads into our online tracking program. Yielding the new program allowed me to not only learn more about the in house programming language, but I got to learn about another language, XSLT, which would be used to convert XML files into our in house format.
Despite being at SCS for only a few months, I have learned a lot about programming. Also, I have been exposed to a variety of programming languages, which keeps every day at work interesting. Naturally, I enjoy knowing that rather than menial tasks, I have been working on programs that directly impact our customers since day one (technically four)... Lately, I have really enjoyed working at SCS, and I really enjoy the environment of the office. Overall, everyone is kind, knowledgeable, and always ready to help, and that's just during working hours. Lunch time is when the real fun starts... (Get an internship, or read the first letter of each sentence to ruin the surprise.)
