I'm 15 years old and am looking for a way to exercise my coding skills over the summer (other than what I already do). I have been learning C++ for a year now and would like to learn Java or Python. If anyone knows of somewhere offering internships or summer workshops please let me know.

sorry bud i don't know of anywhere you could go self teaching yourself is the best way to go

Ok, thanks anyway.

Typically you won't get an internship until you're at least a junior/senior in high school. Just keep practicing so here in a few years you'll have a nice amount of little projects and experience and you shouldn't have a problem getting an internship then.

i'm 14 if I could get an internship it would be awesome. people don't expect teenagers to do "REAL" programming languages

lol C++ is as real as it gets:P

It's not that employers don't expect you to be using a a "real" (not sure what a fake programming language would be?) but more of a legal matter and maturity matter. First off, at least in the U.S., and I'd imagine many other places, getting just a job at McDs before you're 16 is damn near impossible. So getting an internship for career training is very unlikely, if completely unheard of at your age. Second, programming takes a lot of logical thinking that a 14 year old generally just will not have yet. They haven't been exposed to enough mathematics and logic, and their brain is still maturing.

So just practice on your own, download open source software and mess around in it. Make a website to show off your work (and the website you can show off). So by the time you're 18 or so you'll have a nice portfolio of work.

Wow, thanks for the advice. Ok I'll definitely do that, any open source software you would recommend?

I agree with all that has been said. Work Experience is a very big thing in this field. Weather it be professional experience, or working on a open-source project, or even building up a portfolio of apps. If you have stuff to show what you can do you should have no problem getting a internship, or even a job with a company. Another big thing is a degree, which big companies require.

So keep on working on projects, and build up that portfolio. If it comes down to someone with 25 working apps they have built vs someone with a degree and no apps in their portfolio I would choose the first guy almost every time.

any open source software you would recommend?

There are plenty of projects open. Head over to sourceforge or another website like it and browse until you find one you like. We can't really recommend anything to you because we don't know what you are interested in.

But I will tell you this. If you interested in game design and programming, try and get into a open source game project. Or if its networking you love, get into a chat client or something. Make a choice on what you like to do, and what you would like to do for a living. And remember stick with it.

Just remember that some opensource projects will drop out of production for a variety of reasons, so if you just want to build a portfolio I would recommend making projects by yourself and with close team members you know are reliable. And then join one or two big opensource projects for the team experience. Because 1 finished project looks a lot better on a resume then 5 unfinished projects.