Yep.

MOST technology knowledge involves a good deal of tacit knowledge which an only be transmitted person-to-person in an intern/mentor/supervisor mode.

So simpler tasks that have zero barriers-to-entry for automation can be done without this. But for more complex stuff, not so much. This is the same for B2B sales - that will ALWAYS be person-to-person - it simply can't work via e-commerce like selling books or CDs on Amazon.

Yeah, I used "handholding," but that's really an unnecessarily pejorative term for providing direction and knowledge transfer to less-senior employees. I.e. senior employees and managers actually doing their frakking jobs.

What advice would you give to an intern's mentor to improve the remote internship experience?

I was a 2x WFH intern. Micromanage the intern a bit more. Ask to see code that’s being worked on and don’t let them go too long without interaction. It’s way too easy to get distracted when the only interaction we have is a 15 minute stand up in the morning, a few slack messages, and 8 hours of time to manage ourselves. There were a lot of days where I could get done more work in the hour before a 1:1 meeting than the rest of the day. When I’m not learning much and the feedback is still positive even when I slack off then it’s really hard to stay motivated.

Also remember that interns don’t have a home office and most are in their bedroom at the same desk they relax and play games at. It doesn’t feel like I’m actually at work unless there’s frequent interaction

One nice way to "micromanage" and also just learn how senior devs work is to pair program. I feel like it's been a boon for me, as a junior dev myself.

I second what DC1350 said. I didn't get enough opportunities to face criticism, have my code reviewed, or to get steered in the right direction, and that led to the same exact situation where I would piss away weekdays and scramble to put something together before my weekly 1:1.

Of course, if I were a better intern, I would have taken care of a lot of those things myself, but I think it's better practice as a mentor to start with the metaphorical bowling bumpers up and then relax the oversight as the intern proves themselves capable over the 3 months.

Doing it again this summer, I plan to ask for at least 3x weekly 1:1s (e.g. MWF) and to make sure I have code reviewed in the first week or two of the internship. More interaction with other interns would also help, especially technical interaction and not just high-level discussions of our projects. I also think it would be cool to do some sort of pair programming / spectating where I watch the mentor work through a problem to get a sense of what the professional workflow actually looks like.

let interns meet or communicate and share onboarding experience with each ither. so kne senior dev can "hold hand" of a single intern, so to speak, and that intern will hold hands of other interns