Internship Program

80 Hours of PC support training, electronics recycling, management

OVERVIEW

Become an intern with Free Geek Twin Cities (FGTC) to build skills troubleshooting computers in a friendly, low-stress environment. Help with a great cause to refurbish computers and prevent e-waste.

BENEFITS

  1. Work with experienced IT personnel to build skills around desktop support, networking, management and more
  2. Learn troubleshooting skills
  3. Interact with our daily volunteers to help communication skills
  4. Receive printed and LinkedIn recommendation
  5. Thrift Store discount during the internship
  6. Help keep computers in the community and out of the landfill

Choosing internship experience

There are two types of internship experiences that interns can choose.

  1. Operations based: Work on the ongoing projects and help with refurbishing efforts. You will work on variety of tasks and efforts during the internship.
  2. Project based: Pick a research project that will be the basis of the internship and will likely last the entire internship. Free Geek staff can introduce the intern to the current Free Geek setup related to the chosen project and provide basic guidance. The research part of the project the intern should be able to do with little supervision.
Some examples of the internship research project:
  • Improve the process of installing Windows. Free Geek is a Microsoft Certified Refurbisher, however we are with Windows installs and can use some help in improving Windows scripts / overall process
  • Create scripts for installing another Linux distribution on Free Geek’s refurbished computers. Currently vast majority of computers are setup with Ubuntu Linux. Intern can propose setting up any flavor of Linux, some good choices may be Linux Mint and Lubuntu Linux.
  • Redesign Free Geek web page. Free Geek web page is built on the WordPress platform.
  • Propose your own project idea that will either help streamline Free Geek operations or will offer a new / better products to customers.

TIMELINE

The role comes with an introductory training session to understand how Free Geek refurbishes computers for the community. On top of that, our staff will work one-on-one to teach and help start projects. Once comfortable with the responsibilities, you can apply these skills by working with our daily volunteers to help them with their refurbishment projects. We will work to facilitate ideas and improvements that you can try.

Milestones

Number of Weeks Rate Make-up Weeks
5 3 days/wk 2 weeks
8 2 days/wk 3 weeks
16 1 day/wk 5 weeks

This schedule assumes 5 hours per day, with a maximum of 4 days per week.

Attendance Policy

You, as an intern, are expected to commit to a regular schedule, to attend with regular hours (full 5-hour days, unless otherwise arranged) and notify your contact if you are unable to attend on a planned day.
Free Geek understands that it may not be possible to attend every day, however we do expect you to finish your internship within the number of weeks plus the makeup weeks listed in the milestone section above.

Requirements

You must sign the Free Geek Twin Cities Volunteer Agreement before starting your internship.

To apply for an internship: