<p>Does anyone have any advice for a sophomore PetE student with a 3.6 GPA on how to approach a large engineering career fair for an internship? Any useful strategies, etc. for first time internships?</p>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, coming up to a company by saying, “Hi, my name is _____, and I was interested in your summer internship programs.” is actually quite effective. Just make a good impression by showing somewhat genuine interest in what they say to you. As long as you make a decent (i.e. professional, as in well-dressed and speak decently) impression, the most important thing is your resume.</p>
<p>On that note, I will simply say this: don’t put anything on your resume that would instantly offput them, because that’s the fastest way to be thinned out without consideration (they have many resumes to look through, they can just throw away anything questionable to make their lives easier). Just put down your relevant experience, knowledge, education, etc. and frame them in a way that places you in a favorable and engineering-esque way. If you have anything that’s different, but still acceptable (for example: a Computational Mathematics degree instead of Computer Science, or something along those lines), save that for the interview, where you actually get a chance to explain yourself. In the interview, your resume serves as a few talking points; keep that in mind while you design it.</p>
<p>Thank you, NeoDymium. What’s a good strategy when there appox. 50 companies for a particular internship/major? Specifically, how much information should you have on each company without being overwhelmed by the number of companies there? Do you have to have much information? I think it would be hard to remember information on all of them if you wanted to canvas the room with your resume, but at the same time you don’t want to visit just a few…</p>
<p>Just write down a list of companies that offer summer internships in your field. As for knowing about them, genuine curiosity is a good way to hide ignorance. A few companies might not like it that you don’t know about them, but most won’t, and being selective enough to expect people to know about you implies that they can afford to be extremely picky (which is not good for you).</p>