I’m finding it pretty hard to land an internship as a mechanical engineer. Should I intern as a quality engineer to put something engineering on my resume, and would being a quality engineer intern give me useful experience?
How far along in school are you? What’s the job description look like? Quality can largely be administrative, paper pushing, but some are involved in testing or at least maintaining testing equipment. Hence, why I ask. What alternatives do you have?
Yes to get something engineering on your resume. S1 (Mech E) is in a 3 semester CoOp. 2nd semester was in the Quality Control division and they did a lot of manufacturing process analysis/optimization work which was good experience.
Quality Engineering would give you great experience!
You can learn how to work in a professional environment.
You will learn to read the design specs to see what the item to be tested should do.
You will learn to talk to to the designers about how they implemented that design spec.
You will learn the process of testing.
No matter where you want to work in the process (design, implementation,testing) you need to know how the whole process works…and if you were a tester as an intern, that would give you insight when you work as a designer to be able to think about how to test your specs.
You will get a recommendation from your boss to use in applying for a job when you graduate.
You may even get hired by the company.