<p>Hey all, just a few questions concerning an electrical engineering internship:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Is it possible or even likely to get an internship as an electrical engineer the summer after my sophomore year? I am going to be pretty aggressive with sending out resumes and i hope i can get an internship</p></li>
<li><p>On my resume, should I put my high school job under “work experience” even though it is not relevant to engineering? (i worked at a pool for 3 summers)</p></li>
<li><p>Do many employers check references when hiring interns? I don’t think i would get a good recommendation from my pool job lol but I know i would get good references from my professors :)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks for answering these questions.</p>
<p>Hey I can answer your question.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes. I got an internship after my sophomore year with Kimberly-Clark and I’m on my second term with them right now. You should apply. It’s a manufacturing internship and you mostly deal with power systems and control systems. You can either get a staff or a mill location. In the mill you will see how things are made similar to the TV show. It’s pretty cool and you learn a lot. The staff location is more AutoCAD drawing and process planning. Overall it’s been a great experience. </p></li>
<li><p>Yes. I put all of my high school work experience (at a country club) on my resume. Find a way to doctor it up and show leadership through the pool. If you were managing pools or anything put that down. Don’t go into depth if you just mopped the floors because they don’t want to read that. If you have done anything in college related to EE, even if it’s tutoring or helping others with labs put that down as well. They don’t expect you to have much meat on there, so don’t worry. </p></li>
<li><p>In the references section of your resume, put “References availible upon request”. For an internship, they really don’t do a CIA investigation on who you are. Wait until you are applying for a full-time position and have internship experience to put down actual names and numbers.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>As long as you are personable and can carry on a conversation you will be fine.
Before your interview go over your classwork and refresh yourself on what you’ve learned or designed so you can use that in your interview.</p>
<p>Just FYI, for electrical engineers, it’s not that hard to find an internship even after your freshman year. Don’t sweat it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input bro! And also, are you sure its not hard to find an internship after the freshman year? I am entering with AP credits so I will already be taking sophomore courses during my first year, but from what I am looking at there aren’t many companies that hire freshman interns. If I could get an internship freshman year that would be amazing… do you know any companies that would consider freshman interns?</p>
<p>No problem. Yeah the company I work for does. It’s competative, but possible. Kimberly-Clark is the name. I’d throw it out to a lot of companies. Try Tektronics, Agilent, Georgia Pacific, Proctor and Gamble, Motorola, etc. I’m sure some other companies hire freshman- maybe not often, but there are some. So you are entering your first year as a sophomore, basically? If so, don’t fret about not finding an internship your first year. Even if you don’t find one your second year. As long as you have an internship before you graduate that you can put on a resume and have experience to talk to other employers about, you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Yea I am mostly trying to get a few internships to put on my resume for grad school, I am trying to get into the Master’s ECE program at UF (the same college as my undergrad) but I hear it is really competitive and people who go to UF undergrad school have almost no shot at the UF grad programs</p>
<p>That’s odd. You would almost think that since they educated you they would know the rigor of the program, and therefore accept their own students. Interesting. I’m also applying to UF for grad school for the 2012 fall semester. We will see how that goes lol. I just hope they offer assistantships then I’m golden.</p>
<p>Yea that’s what I was thinking as well!! I am from Ohio and I got a huge scholarship allowing me to study at UF, so I was like “what gives, I travel 1500 miles to go to your school and my chances of your grad program are already bad?!?” It just seems odd that that would be the case… but good luck to you and I hope you get in!!</p>
<p>Thanks man. I hope you get that internship and get in as well. Take it easy.</p>