Biological Engineering/Biomedical Co-op or internship?

<p>I am looking for advice form students who are/were majoring in Bio engineering and had experience co-oping with companies. </p>

<p>Here's the situation:
I am about to complete my second semester as a sophomore and I still haven't found a Co-op. Most of the companies that come to our career fair don't want Bio engineers and even if they do, they are looking for grad students. </p>

<p>I have applied to a several companies online but I'm not expecting any response since I don't have any work experience besides a tutoring job, volunteer research work and news writing. </p>

<p>It's very frustrating to see my friends with lower gpa, who are ME's for instance, getting co-ops and internships, while I can't even find a job on campus</p>

<p>Are there any companies out there who hire students with mediocre work experience from a mediocre university? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!</p>

<p>My son is a BioE major and after his first semester he applied to a ton of places for a sumer internship. I signed him up for Interships.com and Monster.com and each time they sent an alert that there was an internship in his field he applied. He applied to around 30, never heard back. Then I had him send his resume and cover letter to bio tech firms around our home (we are fortunate to live in a Bio tech area - Massachusetts) and he offered to work for free as he knew he had to get experience. He heard from one. They called him into talk with him because his letter of recommendation was great. He had no experience but had a 4.0 in BioE. It turned out to be a fantasic job! They ended up paying him 12/hr. He obtained a research position at school based on his experience over the summer, has won several scholarships and is waiting to hear on REU’s and Amgen Scholars for this summer. </p>

<p>Lesson learned, don’t give up, but you have to really put in effort. Once you get in the door and prove yourself, if gets easier.</p>

<p>Stress your research experience, get great recommendation letters and have someone in career service help you with your resume.</p>

<p>^^^Wow, that’s awesome! My son wants to study biomedical engineering in grad school. He’s currently a sophomore mech eng major. We don’t have any technology industries in our home state (Louisiana) and most of the companies that came to his career fair were automotive (Alabama). He would really love to do an internship this summer, but neither our home state or his OOS college have any ties to the biomedical engineering industry. I hope he’ll attend grad school in a bioengineering area, but he’s worried his lack of experience will hurt his grad school acceptances.</p>