Finding an Internship job in Engineering

It's not easy to find internships jobs for the most part, but if you have great recommendations and connections through your professors, it's a lot easier. Summer internship jobs come along each year for students at college studying that field. For students in the engineering program, job internships are usually given to those who best impress the professors in their classes. If you show a lot of promise in your class, your professor is more likely to recommend you to their contacts. If you don't have that recommendation, it can be really difficult to find a job internship in engineering.

Internship jobs can vary depending on the industry you’re working in, but there are some things that are common. In general, interns are the ones who go get coffee, pizza, supplies or anything else the other employees need. You’ll be running errands for people who need to work. As the intern, you haven’t finished college yet or officially applied for a job, so you do the work that anyone can do. You’re basically there to do whatever task everyone else doesn’t want to do or is too busy for.

Requirements usually include a couple years of college. You need to be in an engineering program and you need to be either a junior or a senior to land an internship job. There are some exceptions, especially if your father or other relative works for that company. Relatives can pull strings and get you in as an intern straight out of high school if you show promise in that field. If you seem highly interested in the work your father does, he will most likely take you along to work until people start treating you as an intern and eventually they take you on. So there are very few requirements to get in as an intern.



Most internship pays very little if anything. Some of them are just for the learning experience and college credit. Some pay minimum wage and a few internships will actually pay you more than minimum wage. If a company really wants you to work for them and you are looking for an internship, they might give you a competitive wage to make sure you work for them and not for one of their competitors. This is rare, however, especially with internships. So you’re most likely to expect no pay or minimum wage for an internship job.

Internships are great learning experiences. Finding one depends on your professors as well as your own proactive determination. If you actively seek out an internship, you’re bound to find one in engineering. You just need to get to know other employees, managers, supervisors, etc. who work at the company you want to intern for. If you develop a great relationship with someone in the company, they can get you in as an intern when the position opens up. You might not get paid well, but it’ll help you land a real job with the company later, so it’s worth putting in the time to learn about the company while getting people’s coffee and lunch.