I was just curious what are some things that an engineering student can do over the summer to prepare for the career fair and upcoming school year. The only options I knew about was earning an internship. But if someone didn’t earn one, what other kinds of things can a student do to have a resume boosting summer ?
What are some ways that a student can spend their summer that will help them when going into the Fall career fair ? Since it is really early in the school year.
If it helps, I am going to be a sophomore Mechanical Engineer.
Any job can help build your resume and give you experiences to talk about in interviews, so that would be a good Plan B if finding an internship didn’t work out this year.
Landing internships is an extreme uphill battle, even for the best of the best. For whatever reason, many, many companies are like black holes for applications. It is really a long shot when you are as young as you are. You don’t have any technical skills to offer yet. It helps to have a job though, any job, because as @HPuck35 aptly says, it shows you “play well with others.”
One thing you can do now is to start networking. If you have the chutzpah to reach out cold to alumni of your school, via something like LinkedIn, those connections can parlay into getting a resume read that would otherwise be spit out by an automated system. Referral applicants are FAR more likely to get jobs than random applicants at many companies. For others where it isn’t as big of a deal, I certainly can’t hurt.
The bottom line is, don’t get discouraged if you don’t land anything until you’re a rising 4th year.
You can ask professor at your local university if they can use your help. You can volunteer at STEM camps in your area. You can find a part time job , check Indeed or Angellist. Start up are not that picky and even if they don’t pay you can still get a valuable experience that will help you lunch an internship next year.
@eyemgh
What kind of Technical skills do they expect ? Or whats an example of technical skills freshman and sophomores don’t have? (Because its mainly freshman year when you get your design and coding skills right?) Or do they just expect skills that you earned from other internships or positions?
Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics are the bulk of what you are building a foundation for. You won’t likely hit those series until third year.
You might have some skills to offer though. They will simply be more tech work than actual engineering. My son for example worked for a local firm over his first two summers doing CAD work and 3D lighting models. He was able to get a position with an aerospace company though after his third year where he helped with both fluids and thermo calculations, and was ultimately offered a job.
An internship per se, and not simply a summer job, is really a prolonged interview where they may offer you a job, and you behave as an ambassador of the company when you return to school.
What school do you go to and where do you plan to be over the summer?
Oh . . . . THAT’s what they mean by skills ! Not literal skills, but course work. So it doesn’t matter that I learned Star CCM Plus if I don’t have the fluids background as well .
@eyemgh I go to Texas A&M and this summer I am taking summer engineering classes abroad for a few weeks after failing to find an internship. However, I chose my classes so that I could have 3-4 weeks without classes for exploring / skill development time. My only plan was to develop a personal website with that time and possibly an App.
I’m taking Thermo this Spring and I was planning to take fluids the fall after (partly for schedule hour reasons and partly because I plan on taking the FE in Junior year so I want it fresh on my mind). Would it be wise to move them both up a semester if those are the classes people expect before I can do actual “engineering” work?
Should I put it on my resume if they will just assume I don’t know it as a sophomore otherwise ?
Freshman year is not really where you get programming or design skills. You will develop those over many years. After all, how do you expect to design anything if you don’t understand stress and strain and failure? Or thermodynamic cycles and pressure drop and forces due to fluids? Or dynamics and controls and vibrations?
Freshman year is for developing math and physics skills. The programming and “design” classes are to familiarize you with some software tools while also telling you “see, you are doing engineering year 1!”
Companies hiring interns know you don’t yet have the full array of skills they need and are essentially hiring on potential for future recruitment. You aren’t likely to wow them with your engineering skills until later. For now, you need good grades and a good personality, essentially.
Also, while I am not familiar with Star-CCM+ specifically, I’d be extremely surprised if you were competent at CFD without any actual background in fluid mechanics. Running the software is really something a trained monkey could practically do. Avoiding the garbage in, garbage out problem is why they hire fully-trained engineers to do it.
I wouldn’t accelerate to improve your chances at landing an internship. The odds are stacked against you either way and you risk compromising your foundation. Your coursework is not a means to an end. Treat it as the end. Master it, make good grades and you’ll do fine in due time.
I also wouldn’t worry too much about the app or the website. It seems like they would wow, but engineers can easily discern who has legit skills and who doesn’t. Fluff probably isn’t worth the effort.
I may be missing it, but it doesn’t look like your curriculum has a senior project. If it doesn’t (and even if It does), you might want to strongly consider a club like Formula SAE or CubeSat to apply what you are learning.
There’s also plenty of research opportunities at A&M if that’s more up your alley.
It takes luck and connections. If you haven’t already, full out a LinkedIn profile. Look up A&M in the search function and click search for alumni. Click engineering under what they do. See if you have any connections. Look for alumni that work at companies that interest you. See if they’ll connect. Remember, a referral at many companies has a far greater chance at getting hired than a blind application.
Go to the career center and meet the engineering specialist(s). Job fair is useful too.
Don’t lose any sleep if you don’t land anything, even after your second year. All but a handful of companies only hire rising seniors and graduate students.
@boneh3ad@eyemgh
ok this makes much more sense then what i though employers were looking for. But that does make me wonder how do engineering manage to work in fields different from their own then ? (because won’t say a Mechanical engineer have a different foundation then say a Material Science Engineer or a Nuclear engineer ?)
Well the app is purely for fun since I planned on doing it before hand; I just didn’t know if it would be beneficial to put on my resume. I am on the formula SAE Baja (so a buggie instead of a race car since I am a junior by hours) but at the career fairs employers didn’t seem to care for it (but it may be because they like Formula SAE more) so I was planning on leaving since It was a bit time commitment and my work their was more so dedicated to technical work from intro engineering classes like welding and modeling and pure fabrication then actual “engineering work”.
CubeSat is a standard for launching small satellites that was developed at Cal Poly over ten years ago. It allows schools and commercial entities to access low earth orbit for far less money than a full sized satellite. You may have read about Bill Nye’s involvement with LightSail. It’s a 3U CubeSat.
As for Formula vs. E vs. Baja, they all have opportunities for “real” engineering, but before you can design things like suspension, exhaust, shift controls, etc. you have to have the background. Most first and second years on Formula are machining things that older students designed.
@boneh3ad is better qualified to answer your last question. I’m not an engineer. From what I have seen though, through by son, other family members, and acquaintances, engineers are trained how to learn and how to solve problems. There’s a lot of overlap in the first two years and then some specialties are more aligned than others. AE and ME for example are very close. I guess it would depend on what you wanted to switch to, what was required within the new job description, how well it aligned with what you already knew, and what holes you’d have to fill to be productive.
My uncle for example was an academic civil engineer (PhD Stanford). After his teaching career he developed a mechatronic device for measuring pipeline continuity. He was also a subdivision contractor while he was teaching.
That’s strange. Most recruiters love to talk about design teams. It gives them an opening to ask questions. Everyone takes the same classes, design teams are unique. They also provide great “examples” to share during an interview. Especially those “Behavioral” interview questions.
I think once you get past the “career” fair meet and greet (which is usually limited to your elevator pitch), and get to the normal interview stage, you’ll see the value in the design team experience.
By the way, don’t forget to apply to LOTS of internships, online (LinkedIn, etc.). Don’t limit yourself to the career fair. This summer is a prefect time to update your resume and setup/update your LinkedIn account.
By the way, don’t forget to apply to LOTS of internships, online (LinkedIn, etc.). Don’t limit yourself to the career fair. This summer is a prefect time to update your resume and setup/update your LinkedIn account.
@Gator88NE
Thank you very much for the advice! I also normally didn’t get to mention it until after I said I was a freshman so they may have written me off at that point.
I didn’t think too much about online applications because at a career fair I can bring a photo gallery of my projects but I can’t do that online. However, I just realized that I can put my projects on my website and attach that to my resume so employers can see it . Thank you!
@Eyemgh
Wow, that sounds perfect for a new design team. I will try to get in contact with my schools club. Thank you ! Your clarification and insight are always so impact to me.
One key to finding an internship, is casting a very wide net. Don’t limit yourself to the career fair. They are crowded which will limit the actual number of employers you’ll have a chance to talk with, and several of those will give you the “only interested in juniors” line.
I wouldn’t give up on Baja - the Baja team members that my D knows do very well in recruiting - she is on the Formula team but shares the lab space with them and has many friends there. My D has had a number of interviews, and being able to talk about her design team experience was a huge bonus - she was fortunate to land a great internship as a freshman, and she is certain it was due to that. Also, there are usually many recruiters at the competitions, so if you have a chance to go to the Baja competitions, you may be able to get your foot in the door - my D had a few impromptu interviews for next summer on site at the formula competition. Definitely look online for jobs as well - my D applied to several via LinkedIn, and eventually landed her internship that way. That being said, most of her freshman engineer friends did not get internships for this summer, so her situation is a bit unusual. She has several upperclass friends who did menial jobs after freshman year, but got great interships in later years.