It's spring break and Ive spent most of my free time sending out applications for any summer internship I can find. I'm really trying to get some experience this summer but so far Ive gotten very little response. Is anyone else having this problem? How many applications do you usually send out before landing a position?
Also,
>chemical engineering general
>How many applications do you usually send out before landing a position?
is this your first one?
Yeah, Ive got no real experience. Just a community service project and a 3.55 GPA
then you need to spam like a motherfucker and take whatever you can get. engineering has gotten to the point that you need an internship to get an internship. i'm talking 200+ apps and be willing to travel to any remote shit hole they want to send you to.
not unpaid tho. never under any circumstances take an unpaid internship as a STEM major.
Hehe, good luck. I'm going to graduate school because lmao no jobs here in Canada of all places for ChemE.
Couldn't even land an internship without connections. A friend of mine graduated with a 3.92 GPA without a single internship because nobody would take him. He's stuck doing CFD research now, not too bad I guess.
Meanwhile a girl that had to do 6 years got a senior process engineering job because her dad owns a tea company. It's hilarious, she failed our fucking design classes because she got drunk more often than she showed up to class.
>engineering has gotten to the point that you need an internship to get an internship.
Really getting annoyed with how entry level positions are turning out in the field these days. Companies keep saying they need technical people to fill in this mythical dearth of unfilled positions, but no one wants to bite the bullet and train people to become competent. Then they go lobby the government and say that there are 0 people able to fill in all these necessary positions, and try and import some 20 gorrillian Indians using H1B1s.
>200+ apps
Holy hell. I'm at over 40 now and I thought that was a lot.
i keep trying to tell Veeky Forums that a good GPA isn't enough anymore. if you want to be competitive you need to:
1. Do projects in your off time
2. Join your relevant professional society
3. Read/subscribe to industry magazines
4. Acquire at least 3 letters of recommendation from old bosses/professors
5. Have third party certifications in various software packages/programming languages
6. Volunteer experience
and then you have to nail the interview of course.
>inb4 "you don't need that stuff!)
sure, you don't NEED it, but i guarantee you that in that stack of resumes is a guy who has all that stuff and more and thats who you are competing against.
it's really unfortunate how few optionsthere are to get hands-on engineering experience without first getting rejected literally a hundred times
What sort of projects can I do in my off time that provide some sort of certification or credit?
Where can I acquire third party skill certification?
It's funny how niggas think this is a hard work load lol you can accomplish so much of this in a 1-2 month period. Lazy motherfuckers I swear.
>1. Do projects in your off time
Want to know how I know your a CS major?
A chemE major can't make a petroleum cracking tower in his house.
>Where can I acquire third party skill certification?
whatever software packages your industry uses will typically have certifications available through the company that publishes it. Solidworks, LABView, Ansys, etc.
>What sort of projects can I do in my off time that provide some sort of certification or credit?
build something. you are an engineer aren't you? you need proof of efficacy that you can actually engineer something of a sufficiently complex nature and aren't just a test babby. for ChemE i'd say a good first project is a super critical CO2 extraction device. or maybe something related to the oil and gas industry. the end goal of a personal project is to create something that someone would pay money for. when an employer is flipping through your portfolio and runs across the drawing package for your thing-a-majig 9000, he should say "damn, i'd buy that".
You can just copy what someone else does on YouTube for projects, as long as you cite your work and can explain what you did it will be considered good. You'd be surprised how many people struggle by just copying someone else's project. A third party certification is pretty much any kind of certificate you can get that's outside of school, or maybe in school depending on the program. Those coding boot camps that are online that are free, those are considered valid certifications. You can download an app on your phone to get a certification that makes you practice your skills. Employers just want to know if you know what the fuck you're actually doing. The plus side is that the more you practice the boring and easy shit, the more skilled you become and more able to do the hard stuff.
>A chemE major can't make a petroleum cracking tower in his house.
because it has to be something of that scale? there are plenty of Chem E related things i can think of that he can do. literally anything to do with gas compression would be great.
I'm a mech. E senior and I have never had an internship. I've been applying for jobs out the ass but have not received even a single call back.
>senior
>never had an internship
better go to grad school
That's what I'm thinking. I'm not sure if I have the grades for it though. I'm already going to a joke university.
Wouldn't you be able to just do the design for a distillation column or process?
Then formalize a report around it, no need for any physical thing.
yeah, probably. having a physical thing is just the sizzle on the steak.
look at this man and despair, for he is a future "cost analyst"
>Wouldn't you be able to just do the design for a distillation column or process?
No, because competent institution will have these projects built into a Chem E course. On top that designs that are actually worth a damn take an absurd amount of thought in order to make feasible. Simply applying basics in class and then expecting your experimental design to work is stupidity.
At best an undergrad could make some shitty at home moonshine and call that a project. The best bet for ChemE experience for an undergrad is to become the bitch of some Professor or his grad students and work in a lab.
Fugg, I was thinking about going back to school for chemical engineering. Sounds rough, guys. Any other field that's less competitive and still decent cash on the barrelhead?
Veeky Forums I'm currently 2nd year BSc program with Biochem major on the West Coast. Should I switch to Engineering for better job market/starting salary? Or is it all the same
Undergrad biochem degree is not
worth much unless you plan on going to graduate or medical school; if you want a modest paying job straight out of your four year program then you should switch to engineering - computer science is probably the best for job prospects. Biology bachelors degrees are commonplace and if you plan on pursuing any non-lab monkey career in that discipline you'll for sure be competing against recent doctoral graduates
t. ChemE bachelors current biochem PhD
Hi TC