<p>I see many "chance me" threads with high school students claiming that they have either some sort of internship or even a job and an Engineering Firm or some sort of a Science-Related company. How do teenagers go about doing this? Because I think that is awesome.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<ul>
<li>Your high school or school district may have an internship program (usually unpaid). Contact your counselor for information</li>
<li>Your parents may be able to arrange an internship at their place of work, or at the place of work of a friend or relative</li>
<li>If there are large corporations in your area, you can contact then and ask if they have a program.</li>
</ul>
<p>In addition, when I’ve hired high school students to work as interns (paid at $20/hour), I met them through scholarship and college interviews I do for my alumni association. Then I’ve kept them on as interns through college, and even hired one full-time after college.</p>
<p>^When your company has taken on high school interns were they in engineering capacities or were they intern interns fetching coffee, doing paper work, etc.?</p>
<p>If you’re good enough at programming, you could try your hand a the Google Summer of Code. Basically Google has a site with big companies and open source projects that propose projects that are done online (for pay).</p>
<p>We put them in the same position as college freshman. Technically, they work on projects engineers would do, but they don’ really work on engineering roles - it’s hard to find an engineering role for someone that has never taken an engineering class (and usually it’s not until Junior year that most students take the useful classes). </p>
<p>But they’re not fetching coffee. For $1000 in relocation fees and $10,000 in salary, we’re not paying for a waiter. Usually, a high school student will be given a large amount of training on how the facility runs, and will be assigned a “mentor” to oversee their work. Their project work is something an engineer would do, but that’s not complex engineering. For example, an intern might design be responsible for creating a spreadsheet that tracks key process indicators (identified by the mentor), might be assigned to trace and label pipes in a pipe alley, might be assigned to reorganize and catalog the operating procedures for a process, etc. But for the most part, the first semester is primarily training with the expectation that the student comes back next year and makes more of an impact.</p>
<p>But, keep in mind, that’s for high school students already accepted and about to attend a Top 10 engineering program. In addition, they’re at the top of the admitted students since I’ve been asked to interview them for a scholarship.</p>
<p>I’ve also worked with high school unpaid internships, where a school district will ask for volunteers, then they assign a student to me (which I then assign to an engineer). As far as I can tell, the students don’t have any special qualities (i.e. honor students), they’re just people who ask for an internship in “XYZ” field. Those students do no work at all. They come one hour per week for 8 weeks, and just shadow an engineer, who walks them through the plant, they get to see what an engineer does day-to-day, and they get to meet people that work in the plant. But they do absolutely no work, they’re not allowed to touch anything (vs. paid interns might be allowed to make process changes with approval), and they just get visitor badges (vs. paid interns that get employee badges). It’s more like an extended “take your child to work day”. Both are valuable in exploring if a career is “right for you”, but only one is considered to really carry any sort of honor with it (one is hired and actually does work, while the other is assigned and just observes).</p>
<p>Oh, and I eluded to it with the relocation fee, but paid interns are usually sent out of the state. They’re paid a relocation fee to go to another city to work, whereas unpaid interns just go to the plant nearest to the school (actually, I just tell them I have an opportunity at XYZ address, and they tell me the name of the student coming, and the date/time he or she will arrive - that’s it).</p>
<p>It’ll work as long as your school isn’t in Bum****. MS like mine was. Ranked 50th in education and I surpassed the dropouts by getting a bachelors.</p>