@CalPolyAnon Again, thank you for taking the time. MUCH appreciated.
Just wanted to mention because nobody else has – many students get internships during summer through REU – Research Experience for Undergraduates https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/ which have (paid) internship opportunities in various majors from astronomy, chemistry, earth science, engineering, math, physics, social behavior, etc. https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.jsp
Another thing to mention for future summers (not pre-freshman year) is that Caltech’s SURF program has a number of opportunities that are open to non-Caltech students. The deadline has passed for this year, but you’ll see that there are typically a number of JPL Mechanical Engineering projects available:
Since Calpoly is also on quarters, the time frame for SURFs may work out better than the typical timing of REUs.
The Annual Reports for the SURF program show that they typically accept about 300 Caltech students and 150 non-Caltech students. The students are approximately evenly distributed between those who have just finished their freshman, sophomore, and junior years.
The separate JPL Summer Internship program has an April 13 deadline. They don’t say specifically, but I would guess they are looking for students who have completed at least a year of college. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern/apply/summer-internship-program/
For internships the summer after high school, I would try working contacts with local friends at smaller companies. Or, just earn some money and do things you can’t do during the school year (like get your wisdom teeth out, any vaccine boosters, etc.).
@byebyebaby I’m a mechanical Engineer. Apple hires quite a few of us and the business majors/ designers as well.
@NLinsanity What do you do for Apple as a Mech Eng?
@NLinsanity Sorry, I think I asked same on another thread. I realize you can’t disclose details, but I meant functionally…like were you doing software development? If so, is that usual for ME?
@byebyebaby
Apple makes about a million iPhones a day, you can’t really do that with just a software background. They’re known for being the king of hardware. I was on the manufacturing side, but there’s plenty of hardware design roles.
Because of Apple though, I’ve also been recruited by Microsoft and Google who have much smaller hardware teams, but you can find those roles on their website if you look it up as well.
Several years ago, Tim Cook revealed that Apple had about 450 engineers working on the iPhone camera alone.