Hello, this is my first post in the discussion. I am a soon-to-be Junior Student in University who majors in Mechanical Engineering with the current cumulative GPA of 3.045. (Used to be 3.217 but kinda screwed up during Sophomore year :P)
Since, I was soon to be in Junior in my college year and I was becoming desperate about improving GPA and applying for Internship or Co-OP, I was wondering if there’s an advices or tips that can help me to survive through my Junior Year and able to apply for the Internship or Co-OP.
So I was wanted to ask you guys that , how can I do well on my Junior Year in Engineering Major to improve my school GPA and if I’m trying to apply for internship or co-op, what kind of internship should I look for? Like Quality Enginnering? or others?
Internships: apply to everything that is looking for your major. Use your school (they probably have a career fair and/or job site) and the job-listing websites Indeed and Monster. Don’t limit yourself to certain disciplines or geographic areas. Apply to everything, everywhere.
Have someone knowledgeable go over your resume – Career Services at your school will probably do it, as will the people on the Engineering Students subreddit. Look up examples of how engineering resumes are supposed to be formatted. Write good, not generic cover letters when possible.
As for your GPA, figure out what happened second year and correct it. Typically, it’s lack of efficiency, poor planning, procrastinating and not getting help from profs and study groups before you’re too far behind the eight ball. PM me if you want a recommendation for a book if you don’t know how to correct those things.
For internships, in addition to @bodangles great advice, start early, well before Christmas. Companies tend to hire in two cycles, Fall and Winter/Spring. Apply to LOTS, really as many as you can stomach, because it’s lots of tedious, repetitive work.
My son has a 3.7something, at a well respected school, relevant club experience and two previous summers with a local engineering firm. He applied to 30 or so positions, got tech interviews from 4, and 1 offer.
Parlay ANY connections you have. It is very valuable.
Lastly, have an ATS compliant resume. Google it if that was Greek.
Good advice to start early. When I was manager I’d be calling applicants right after Christmas break and have all the interns lined up by the end of March at the latest.