<p>The summer after my daughter’s junior year in HS (age 16), she spent part of it doing an internship in an architect’s office. She wrote letters to several local architects asking about interning. She got offers and did one. She was paid a stipend (I don’t know if you are only willing to work for pay or not or just want the experience). The architect gave her actual architectural tasks to do such as drawing floor plans, making models, site visits, drafting plans on AutoCad, creating elevations, etc. It doesn’t hurt to try. </p>
<p>Another idea is to see if you can work with any local builders helping with carpentry or some such and learn a bit about the built environment. </p>
<p>A job involving creative artistic work of some sort, either freehand or on a computer might be helpful too. </p>
<p>You could get a regular summer job for pay unrelated to architecture and build time into your schedule to see if you can observe in various architects’ offices like job shadowing. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>