There are going to be a lot of things in your grown up life that aren’t “you”. Paying taxes, filing an expense report if you want your employer to reimburse you for travel (when we go back to traveling!), switching your voter registration if you move, getting the right license plates on your car if you leave your state…
Don’t overthink this. Making connections with your professors is part of the reason you are in college and not just reading books on your own. Agree with Mom’s fine suggestion of going to the career center. And you can break down the steps necessary on your own-professors don’t need you to become their best friend, they just want to see an interest in the subject that seems genuine.
“I’m just trying to traverse a college/ future career landscape and trying to land internships and career opportunities with that being apart of who I am as a person.”
Nobody is going to hire you without an interview- and what is an interview, but 45 minutes spent “not being you”. You can do this without “selling out” your principles. Nobody is asking you to sell crack to an 8 year old- you just need to show your professors a modicum of interest besides showing up for class. Stay late to ask a question; show up at office hours to find out if there is reading you can do that explains something that wasn’t clear during lecture; send an email indicating that you’d be interested in a research project next semester. Voila.