<p>I am going to be a sophomore EE this fall and coming in with a 3.4 GPA. </p>
<p>There is a fall expo where many companies come and recruit. I plan on going to that but i don't know if my gpa is competitive enough to land an internship...What should I do to stand out? </p>
<p>Should I just aim for a higher gpa and try the spring expo?</p>
<p>Your GPA is fine. Sure, it has a good amount of room for improvement, but it will not prevent you from obtaining an internship. What WILL prevent you from obtaining an internship is interviewing poorly.</p>
<p>So, what you can do to stand out is work on your interview skills. This is a pretty vague statement, but some more specific things you can work on:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Become familiar with common interview questions. Most people interviewing read from a script and that script is shared between 95% of the employers on this plant. Prepare responses to these questions and tie your responses to recent experiences so it doesn’t sound like you are making stuff up.</p></li>
<li><p>Be able to carry on a decent conversation. If you sit there and simply answer question after question as quickly as possible you probably won’t do very well. Instead, elaborate upon your responses to questions and ask questions. For example, if you are asked if you would mind having to travel occasionally a bad way to respond would be “No, I’m fine with that.” Instead, you could say something like “I would not mind that at all. In fact, I would welcome the opportunity to see other parts of the country and meet new people while I am single and have very little holding me down. Roughly how often could I expect to travel?” Both responses convey the same point but the second one is much, much better.</p></li>
<li><p>Make sure your resume is well written. This means checking for spelling/grammar mistakes and ensuring it sounds like you actually understand what you are putting on it. I have read countless resumes where it was quite apparent that the author had no idea what he was talking about but put it on his resume because he thought that it would sound good. Have someone with relevant work experience read your resume if possible.</p></li>
<li><p>Dress appropriately. This may or may not require wearing a suit, it depends on the situation. I went to a few job fairs not wearing a suit when a majority of the attendees wore suits. Instead, I wore good looking clothes that showed I was not some mindless zombie who just does whatever everyone else does while at the same time not going overboard with crazy colors or anything like that.</p></li>
<li><p>Learn a bit about the companies you are interested in before you go. You do not have to be able to recite their entire history from memory, but you should be able to identify a few reasons why you find the company interesting, want to work there, etc. Have an idea of what work they actually do by browsing their job openings and reading their website.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Your GPA is fine. I got internships every summer in college with a lower one. Also, everything PurdueEE says is dead on. I could just restate it all but he hits everything, so read that and do everything he says, especially the bit about learning about the company and what sort of openings they have.</p>
<p>Also, keep an open mind and walk up to companies you wouldn’t normally think of yourself working at. Never know what might happen.</p>
<p>Most important advice:</p>
<p>Be punctual!</p>
<p>You fail that step and the rest of the process is doomed.</p>
<p>Is it true that in the Terms of Service of CC, there is clause (5(A)(c)(iii)) that allows for anyone that posts more than 4 paragraphs in any one post as advice to receive 17.5% of any compensation received by a student in an Internship if the student used the advice of the poster to obtain the Internship, provided however that the job is obtained within 7 months, 3 weeks of the date of the advice?</p>
<p>If you want to succeed </p>
<p>in life</p>
<p>work hard</p>
<p>and never give up on your dreams.</p>
<p>Now where’s the money?</p>
<p>^ lmao </p>
<p>Land an internship? Why don’t you explore one right now?
A reasonable and solid GPA is expected. You have to convince them that you are the right candidate for the internship position.</p>