On our fifth day, they told us only one intern will get a return offer. 

Do you guys have any advice on how I can secure a return offer?

Let me give some backstory. I was a top student in high school, 1510 on the SAT, top 5% in my class. I ended up going to a good, but not amazing uni because of the scholarship money. Of course, if someone asks what school I attend, I make sure to mention that I COULD have gone to UMich or UT Austin but I just couldn't afford it.

I just finished my sophomore year and started an internship at a large financial company that most of you have heard of. People who aren't really in the loop think I'm cracked when I tell them where I'm interning, but the truth is, the interview was incredibly easy. They asked me basic data structure questions, and were surprised when I had a strong grasp on linked lists.

The first day of the internship was last week. I was one of the first ones there. My mom had to drop me off before work because I don't have a car. Of course, if anyone asks, it's because I'm extremely punctual. Slowly, interns started to flood into the rotunda of our beautiful campus. The building was filled with a familiar, slightly upper middle class odor. Bright smiles filled the room.

Everybody was really excited. There were around 70 of us. I introduced my self to the two guys next to me: Xavier and Siddharth.

Siddharth was an interesting fellow. He claimed to be a personality hire but had 4 Hackathon wins and 100 Leetcode questions completed. He talked a lot and had a LeBron James wallpaper on his phone.

Xavier, on the other hand, was very chill. He said he had two other offers, one from a defense company and the other from a telecom company. He ended up choosing this one because software engineers at banks don't really do any work and WLB is really important to him.

Anyway, as the day went on, we were introduced to our teams, got our laptops set up, got familiar with the campus (we have a tennis court btw). As I was walking with my new friends, I overheard this girl say that there's no way she'd stay at this shithole, and that she only wants this company on her resume so that she can recruit for CDFAANG. I stopped in my tracks and asked her what CDFAANG means.

"Capital One, Deloitte, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Google. How do you not know what CDFAANG stands for?".

I kept walking.

Later I had lunch with Siddharth and Xavier. Unfortunately we had to bring lunch from home because the cafeteria did not have free food. We talked about our favorite Naruto moments.

Anyway, we did team building activites and stuff like that for the first two days, and on Wednesday we started actually working. My first sprint was to improve productivity tracking on an internal tool using machine learning algorithms and analytical data blockchain engines to further bolster our tech stack. Fairly simple task.

The week passed fast and it was finally Friday. Every Friday morning, we have an intern meeting apparently. I was there early, of course, but eventually, the other interns started pouring in.

The lights dim, and our intern director had a serious look on his face.

Interns start whispering.

"We understand this news may not be appealing to you, but unfortunately, for budgeting reasons, only one of you will receive a return offer. I understand you guys have already made friends here, but you must consider everyone your rival."

Everyone froze. Our smiles faded away. The CDFAANG girl fainted. Siddharth was seething. Xavier was about to cry.

Me? I lowkey have a fall internship at IBM so I was chilling tbh.

Anyway, there was a sad sad air that filled the day. The hallways weren't as loud as they were before. Xavier didn't say a word the whole day, as if he ran out of tokens.

The intern hunger games had begun.