I attend UNC Chapel Hill and am currently a biomedical engineering major, and I’ve noticed that all of my freshman friends have internships set up for them this summer. I’ve emailed as many companies as I can to try to get internship, but I’ve had no luck. I seem to have 2 problems: 1) engineering companies in general are hard to intern at, and 2) most of the major companies that I am looking at are located in RTP (near UNC), however, I am unable to stay in chapel hill for the summer and have to go to my hometown in which there are very few engineering firms within a 60-mile radius.
Should I just accept the fact that not all freshman can get internships, or is there a better way to go about this? (Also- even though I am a freshman, I came in with enough AP credit to where I am actually taking mostly sophomore classes). Most of my friends that have them are business/journalism majors and I feel like those may be a little bit more popular and easier to try to work at a place like that with little to no experience. Are all other engineering majors having this same struggle?
On another note, would trying to do research at a university be worth it? I toured some research labs at a local college, and even though the research group is in the “biochemical engineering” sector, I felt like most of the work they were doing was your average biology (typical bio lab with gel electrophoresis and mixing test tubes). It seemed cool, but not really engineering-related. I am sure this research experience would not be totally useless, but it would be strictly volunteer (no pay, no credit hours) - would it even be worth my time? Or should I just enjoy the last summer I have to be free and just hold out until a better/more fitting job comes along (hopefully that pays)?