I’m a college freshman majoring in political science and this summer I am applying for an internship at one of my senator’s state offices. For my application I need to include three references. Since I’m only a freshman, all of the political sciences courses I’ve taken so far have been lecture classes and I’m pretty sure none of the professors know my name. I’m taking a geopolitics course, about 30 students, with a geography professor right now who I’m planning on asking for one of my references, but I don’t know how to go about the other two. Last semester I took a general civics course that consisted of one lecture and two small, about 15 student, professor led discussion sections each week. I see two drawbacks as the professor also teaches in the geography department and I only got a B in his class. I took one political science course last semester that I did well in, but I only spoke with the professor once and if I approached her now I don’t know if she would remember me. I’m in two political science courses this semester and I have a similar relationship with those professors as I did with the professor I had first semester.
My options, as I see it, are as follows:
A) 3 professor references (2 Geo and 1 PoliSci)
B) 3 professor references (1 Geo and 2 PoliSci)
C) 2 professor (both Geo?) references and 1 TA references
D) 1 professor references and 2 TA references
Should I ask permission to put professors down as references if they don’t really know anything about me other than the fact that I’m in their class or should I ask my TAs who don’t have as high credentials, but could vouch for me better than my professors? Also, does it matter as much since they are just asking for references and not recommendation letters?