<p>I'm a rising senior majoring in EE and have posted on the engineering forum a few days earlier regarding a decision I had to make. I have started pretty early to look for internships (earlier than some friends of mine that are now interning somewhere). Got about 5 interviews and 0 offers. I was then offered a paid research position on a humanoid robot this summer at my school. But later during the semester, another offer came; it was an internship position as an energy engineer supporting energy audits, retro commissioning at an real estate engineering consulting firm in NYC. </p>
<p>I was torn between the benefits of gaining real world experience and the possibility of developing technical (programming and many other ) skills through research. I eventually decided to go for the research as I believe the unpaid position gave me little reasons to keep.</p>
<p>So far my only work experience was being a head tutor at my school. Now ever since I have made this choice, I am constantly asking myself how I'm gonna find a job next year. I just traded my last chance of getting office experience for academic research and to my knowledge, unlike internships, research isn't really the best asset for a job search. I might be wrong (I hope I'm wrong).</p>
<p>Therefore I am now asking for opinions, advice on what to do maximize my chances. I have a relatively good GPA 3.6+ which makes me feel even worst that I could not find any internships.</p>
<p>You have already made your decision so there is no use discussing whether you made the right choice or replaying “what if” scenarios. You need to focus on your senior year and ways you can make yourself marketable. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Get an internship/co-op during the school year - your GPA may suffer but you have an excellent GPA already and it won’t be the factor that makes or breaks a job interview. You already have well above the minimum GPA. </p></li>
<li><p>Get involved in school activities and project management - leadership, passion, management are all things you can get a “head start” in by getting involved in clubs and organizations. </p></li>
<li><p>Network - talk to people in the field you are interested in and set up cold calls and informational interviews. This will (1) help you network (2) give you direction in terms of career goals (3) help you get comfortable with the interviewing process. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>EDIT: Just wanted to clarify something - you can definitely get a job without doing any of the above, but it will be easier if you take some of the above suggestions. It all boils down to how well you interview - the more you have to talk about and the more experience you have interviewing, the better your chances will be</p>
<p>To -Lurker-, you are speaking the truth. I should definitely stop being miserable about my decision. It’s time to move on. I just take failure pretty hard, especially when my friends are always discussing there internships and stuff and I just sit there and listen; those times are the worst.</p>
<p>Regarding your suggestions, I have read them all and they all make sense to me. I guess I will try to apply to a lot of places for co-op in the fall or spring. As for your second suggestion, I dont know what to think because I have been involved in a lot of student organizations including IEEE HKN and I’m also a student athlete (played soccer since my sophomore year). So I try to be involved and it usually works in my favor. </p>
<p>I believe I just failed because of my lack of hands-on experience (that was on eof the feedback from an interview). But as you suggested, I will network and build power ties that will hopefully be a deciding factor in the future.</p>
<p>To smorgasbord; Some people, including my advisor, told me the same thing. That research counts as experience. This particular one that I am doing is a full time paid position actually. I just started today and got exposed to Arduino already, which is a good thing. I know I can develop great skills off of this. </p>
<p>The biggest issue will then be how well I will market myself to employers in the near future.</p>
<p>I don’t think marketing yourself should be a problem. You’ve most likely done a lot of meaningful work as a research assistant, which will give you plenty of things to talk about in your interviews. Trust me, doing research is infinitely better than being a social media intern</p>
<p>After reading your response, perhaps you should focus on #3 - from what I have gathered, you have accomplished things, but you just have problems conveying them and showing the interviewer that you do have experience. </p>
<p>You’ll learn that in most interviews, it is all about how you spin your experiences and being successful at that only comes with experience.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for your help. I will network and all of the above. I am just afraid of the challenge; got to face it in a way or another. </p>
<p>I know a place that would have taken if it wasn’t for my lack of experience with Revit. I kept in touch with the place and they insisted that I learn it so I can potentially join them this upcoming Spring or Fall.</p>
<p>The thing I realized during this long journey so far is that one thing is to do well in your classes and get good grades but to actually interview and get jobs requires a whole different level of skills.</p>