<p>My spouse is a junior at a Midwest public university and has a 3.4 in Chem E. He is on course to graduate in 4 years. He applied for many internships this fall and received some interviews, but no offers. His resume and personal presentation are good (I think so!) He is discouraged. If he does not get an internship, what should he do this summer? Summer school so he will graduate in 41/2 or 5 years and maintain good grades?</p>
<p>If he is applying for a summer internship, it is kind of early for that. The company that I worked for would collect resumes in the fall; evaluate them around December; make phone calls to people that interested us in January and go from there.</p>
<p>Many companies directly or indirectly rely on government funding. With all the budget stuff going on, a company won’t want to commit to an internship until they know their budget situation, which would probably be no sooner than about a month after the government figures theirs out first.</p>
<p>One the down side; a 3.4 would have been about the low cutoff for an internship where I worked. Some years it was up around 3.5 to 3.6 depending on the resumes we got. It was a large company with lots of people applying. Make sure he also applies (if he hasn’t already) to smaller companies. They may not bring in as many interns but usually have far fewer applicants.</p>
<p>If he doesn’t get an internship, all is not lost. A final career placement after graduation is many times easier than getting an internship. My son didn’t get an internship and ended up working for a professor at school (no pay!!). When he went looking for a permanent position, the work he did for the prof was just what one company was looking for and they made him a great offer (which he accepted).</p>