<p>Just curious as to the different ways that kids landed their summer internships. Career Fairs (fall or spring?), networking?, referral? online job board? off-campus search? Did it happen quickly or was it necessary to submit many applications?</p>
<p>Also would be interested in the timing of securing a summer internship…is it usually early in the fall - or later?</p>
<p>Also, if you could indicate the field of study - that might help others out, as well.</p>
<p>engineering - most of the companies around here (oil & gas) interview and fill their summer positions in the fall (like september). if you start looking afer that, you will be told they have already filled their spots. of course, there will be outliers.</p>
<p>fall career fair!</p>
<p>that is not how my daughter got hers though. her prof emailed students and said to email him if they were interested in an internship at xxx company. she did that and it went from there. i guess a former student emailed the prof looking for interns.</p>
<p>my daughter applied for a BUNCH! the only ones she heard back from were ones where we had a personal connection or reference. NOTHING from applying online at places like indeed (except for computer generated replies).</p>
<p>use connections. ask around. GO TO THE FALL CAREER FAIR!</p>
<p>We are working on one for D for next summer. It would be shadowing. It’s thru a family friend. If that one falls thru then we have 2 connections at home that she could shadow. </p>
<p>Seems early to be looking for next summer but all of the background checks that have to be done, paperwork, logistics, etc, I want to get that done and out of the way.</p>
<p>S is a CS major and didn’t have luck this summer (will be at his 2nd year at Alabama this fall although almost a senior). He is still 18 and I think that had a lot to do with not being chosen for the few he was interviewed for. He plans on looking hard this Fall/early Winter for an internship for next summer, so any advice etc. from those who did find/get one this year or in the past is appreciated!</p>
<p>As a junior MechE at UA, my advice is start looking early. A lot of large companies are actively recruiting for Spring and Summer (2014) now. The company that I’m with now is already sending out offers for next summer.</p>
<p>For his business internship, my son learned about opportunities via career fairs and related events affiliated with the business school, as well as through announcements in his business classes. The big flurry of activity was at the beginning of Spring Semester (junior year), when he applied for multiple positions. He interviewed with two firms, each involving multiple rounds of in-depth interviews with progressively higher personnel in the companies. He received two offers. Both offers came in April. It was highly competitive and nerve wracking.</p>
<p>For his film internship (still ongoing) he proposed an internship structure in the Spring Semester (sophomore year) to one of his UA profs, who accepted his pitch and assumed supervision once the department formally approved it.</p>
<p>My son is in Civil E.</p>
<p>I told him to go to the fall job fair, but there were very few companies looking for civil engineers and of those that were there only one or two were looking for interns. He expressed that it was pretty much a waste of his time. (But that’s definitely the best time to start looking and I’m going to encourage him to go again this year).</p>
<p>I also started looking online trying to track down some opportunities for him to apply to and found one that was relatively local and told him to apply online. He didn’t know how to answer some of the questions and by the time he asked for help, the job was no longer listed.</p>
<p>So, then we kind of gave up on finding an internship and started focusing on studying abroad this year. I knew it’d be a challenge to get an internship after one year, so I wasn’t too disappointed.</p>
<p>The Civil department and/or ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) organization did have some companies come to campus to speak to students. One came that my son REALLY liked and they specificially asked him if he was interested in interning. At the time we were focussing on travel abroad, so he told them no, but they still took his resume for potential future opportunities.</p>
<p>As the year progressed and my son started missing home and friends he decided that he didn’t want to be gone all summer on a travel abroad experience. He really wanted to be at home where he could reconnect with family and friends.</p>
<p>That was in…March. That sent me into panic mode. I got on EVERY online job search site that exists - Careerbuilder, Monster, Internmatch, Indeed, Simplyhired… and then just started Googling ‘Summer 2013 civil engineering internships’ in a variety of versions. I quickly found that there were A LOT of companies still looking for interns. I could have EASILY had my son apply to upwards of 100 vacancies. I considered the expenses and logistics of him interning somewhere we didn’t know anyone. It was possible, but wasn’t sure it was worthwhile if he had to use all his earnings to pay living expenses for the summer, so I restricted my search to just areas where we had family or close friends that he could stay with for the summer. I quickly found a job that specificly noted that they were looking for a candidate with 1+ years of college that was located less than 30 miles from his grandparents and had him apply and he quickly got an interview. It wasn’t the highest paying opportunity out there, but at $10/hour it was better than he could make working at Walmart. He strongly thought he was going to get an offer, but a few weeks went by with no response.</p>
<p>I provided him several other opportunities to apply to (5-10 others) and he did get another interview, but said they were asking him questions about topics he hadn’t learned about and he was not very confident about it.</p>
<p>Finally, at the end of April, I believe the week before finals, he heard back from the first company saying they’d had some bureaucratic issues, but were back on track and needed him to provide additional information. He was going to Ecuador for 10 days with Alabama Action Abraod and was officially offered the position while he was out of the country and I was fielding his messages.</p>
<p>I think it helped that this was a small organization - actually a city government, so there was not a huge demand to get an internship there like there is at larger, more popular companies. Also it was not a very high paying position, so many upperclassmen with experience weren’t interested. Although it wasn’t very high paying, he spent the summer with relatives so had no living expenses, got experience to put on his resume, and got to work on a few interesting projects (his first task was on driving on every road in the town and ranking them on a scale he was given to determine a priority for resurfacing).</p>
<p>My kids found them three different ways.</p>
<p>1) applying online to Redstone Arsenol Army base for eng’g internship</p>
<p>2) applying to high tech companies in Cummings Research Park</p>
<p>3) applying to REUs on the NSF website. Apply EARLY…and get LORs lined up EARLY.</p>
<p>Can I have some cheese with my whine? S applied to about 100, went to the spring career fair & never heard back from any where he didn’t have an intro. Had a couple of positive interviews but the most promising didn’t need as many interns this year. Just when I thought it was hopeless I saw an ad for an intern specifically asking for one of his majors- Psych. And a good friend even knew the owner of the company. The president was nice enough to take his call, but explained that the job didn’t really exist, someone came back weeks ago?
He also couldn’t even find a regular job despite pounding the pavement in a 20 mile radius. No one was hiring just for the summer.
H had to finally jump in & get him a job at his friends store which we are incredibly thankful for.
Not sure what the strategy should be for next summer- I am stressing already since it will be Jr. Year. I told him to start thinking about it now. He’s got zero professional experience besides retail & restaurants.</p>
<p>D is political science major and Arabic language minor. She interned last summer in our US Congressman’s office on the hill. This summer she interned for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also on the hill. The jobs were totally different, and both were great experiences. Both offices offered 2 sessions per summer to accommodate the student’s schedules and allow for more students to participate. The congressional internship was non paid. The senate gave a stipend for living expenses.
She too applied to many think tanks and other agencies in DC and never heard back. I guess the DC students really have an advantage with contacts, etc.</p>
<p>We assumed my S would have no trouble getting a regular job over the summer - but no one would hire him knowing he would be leaving in 3 months - plus there were few who were hiring to start with. So he is sitting here with ZERO job experience of any kind. </p>
<p>(He did make good use of his time by taking summer courses - but he would have benefited more by gaining work experience somewhere.)</p>
<p>Many companies have cutback their summer intern positions, and some don’t get their summer intern budgets til ridiculously late. </p>
<p>One year, Northrop Grumman didn’t have their summer internship budget til May, so that’s when they finally interviewed. </p>
<p>Try:</p>
<p>Northrop Grumman
Boeing
Nasa
Benchmark
Army (corp of engineers) - they immediately gave my son a $3 an hour increase after they learned he was a NMF…weird.</p>
<p>BTW…if your child is a NMF, put it on the resume and app. The corps that are also NMF sponsors seem to give an edge to NMFs.</p>
<p>FWIW, I think these factors helped my son:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>He participated in mock interviews, got feedback on his resume, and revised it according to the good feedback he received.</p></li>
<li><p>He consulted with a senior in marketing who he respected, asked him to review his resume, got further feedback, and tweaked it some more.</p></li>
<li><p>He reviewed the companies he was going to interview with on Glassdoor, learned a great deal about the questions he’d likely encounter, and prepared his own questions for the interviewer.</p></li>
<li><p>He immersed himself on the companies’ websites so he’d be familiar with their mission statement, corporate culture, and structure.</p></li>
<li><p>He met with Dr. Sharpe and obtained insight about how to interview effectively.</p></li>
<li><p>He dressed the part.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Well S had #6! He did do a lot of research prior, but nowhere near what your S did, impressive. S was looking for marketing positions & we live in commuting distance to NYC so I thought that would help, but he didn’t get one interview there.
I think one of his issues is- he hasn’t really done anything on campus to further a career- he’s got a dual major in psych & communications & minor in business. But he hasn’t put it all together. I’ve encouraged him to look for leadership roles or some research oppty. Hopefully he will come up with something when he gets back to campus.
Malani, did your S intern far from home? I’m thinking next year he might have to look all over the US.</p>
<p>ldinct…Your son is a Communications major?</p>
<p>I wonder if that TV station that opened an office in Midtown Village has internships. It’s in the back area, second floor…kind of by Tazikis</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He was given the choice of a number of locations in the southeast and chose to remain in Tuscaloosa for three reasons: 1) East Edge gave him a great rental deal, including free rent through the month of May (he was already residing there on his NMF housing package); 2) access to UA’s athletic facilities throughout the summer; 3) proximity to girlfriend. :)</p>
<p>The economics of the arrangement worked out quite favorably, enabling him to save $$ AND purchase otherwise unaffordable video production gear & software.</p>
<p>Thanks m2ck I will have him look there.</p>
<p>With engineering internships hard to find this summer, son spent his summer doing research with his professor. He did not take classes, as we didn’t want to go any more out of pocket than housing, but did take the GRE, with a little online prep, and enjoyed working on his project without the distraction/stress of classes/homework assignments. He’s even more determined now that he wants to go on to grad school and continue to pursue his research opportunities. Since we are not too far from Bama, he was able to come home for a couple of long weekends, which meant a lot to us as we had a lot of family issues going on this summer. Thankfully, he has a generous scholarship from Bama, so he had the financial freedom to do this research when paid internships did not come through for him. He will likely spend his senior year looking at grad school options, rather than summer internships, since the field he is interested in requires graduate work.</p>
<p>Montegut: So glad your son had a great summer. I know he is doing wonderful research.</p>
<p>My D had a REU experience after freshman year and sophomore year. No internships. She looked at the NSF website that M2CK recommended. My D applied to several and was fortunate enough to get a REU both times. A REU is a paid research experience for undergraduates. While it’s not an internship, I think it is still a valuable experience.</p>
<p>She applied in December for the REUs. [National</a> Science Foundation](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/]National”>http://www.nsf.gov/)</p>
<p>My son worked as an Congressional intern while his freshman year at Alabama. Because he was taking two summer classes, he chose to work at one of the satellite offices. He made contact with the local office, so if your student is not in a position to work in DC, tell he to try a local office. You gain value experience and contacts there.</p>
<p>Because he won a Hollings Scholarship, he was awarded a government internship with NOAA between his junior and senior years. He got to spend the summer in America Samoa. So, do encourage your students to apply for those prestigious scholarships.</p>
<p>Following graduation from UA, he landed an internship with a foundation in DC. He discovered that internship online.</p>