Help finding an engineering internship

I realize this may be the wrong place to post this, but this is the only social forums that I'm a member of.

I was hoping there was someone out there who could help me in locating an internship. I'm posting this in the Colorado section because my first choice would be somewhere there (i have close family and it's where my fiancee lives). Anyway, I'm graduating a year from now (next December, on a 4 1/2 year schedule) and even though I've applied for possibly hundreds of places, I still don't have any work experience for after graduation and the mad job hunt that will ensue. My major is Materials Science/Engineering, so anything from design engineering to research and development would be great. Even though pay would be nice, that's not my priority right now, experience and resume building is.

Anyway, just hoping someone might know of someone that might be looking for someone still, or if you know someone that might accept an unpaid intern if they don't have the budget for a regular intern.

Yes I have tried google and job search websites and all that. This is just another attempt for me to put myself out there.

If you're going to be in Boulder, look for internship possibilities at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research). I don't have any personal connections there, but I was there for my meteorology class a few days ago and they expressed a lot of interest in getting engineering interns to work at their north Boulder location. They have a shop where they design and fabricate weather instruments for research purposes.

Try Lockheed in Littleton or Ball Aerospace in Boulder.

Oilfield services companies are hiring engineers like crazy right now. Baker Hughes, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Weatherford, etc all hire any kind of degreed engineers and will train you for whatever they need you for. The pay is way better than most real engineering jobs, though it won't actually build your resume with any kind of applicable experience to your degree, and you surely won't use what you learned in college. But it keeps you out of a cubicle, you travel a ton, and usually get good days off schedules (two weeks on, one week off for example). Lots of work in North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and anywhere in the world there's oil.

Thanks guys. I'm looking into the suggestions today.

Wyatt-Why would they hire engineers if the job doesn't require anything learned from an engineering degree?

look at the National labs in the area. NREL and a few others around.

Evan Sanders wrote:Thanks guys. I'm looking into the suggestions today. Wyatt-Why would they hire engineers if the job doesn't require anything learned from an engineering degree?

Because engineers generally have strong analytical skills. Some of the value of a degree might be in what the holder has learned, but I think more and more, a degree is saying that they have widdled down the entire population to a smaller group of people that are defined by some attribute (Seriously, ask any engineer over thirty how to solve a partial differential equation, or solve an indeterminant beam load and they will probably laugh at you or find a computer program that does it). For engineers, their degree generally says "I am smart". They were probably already smart before they started school, but now they have a piece of paper that says it too. Since companies generally don't hang out with all of their applicants, they don't know who is smart and who isn't except by the kinds of degrees they have. A lot of companies want people who have certified smart papers.

I had an internship at Micromotion in Boulder. I also used to work for a company called Ionex Research in Lafayette, just outside of boulder. The engineering managers there, Dave and Rob are both climbers...I'm pretty sure that's why I got the job.

www.ionexres.com

www2.emersonprocess.com/en-…

I personally would avoid oil field companies like Schlumberger. I interviewed with them and was told in the interview that renewable energy is a thing of the past. Also, look where oilfields are, do you really want to live there??

But to each there own. Good luck. Wish I could help more but a couple of years in engineering was enough for me so I am no longer in the field.

Rock fencer-Already applied for most of the national labs. Now i just have to wait until March...

Danny-That makes sense. I wonder how many engineers go that route.

jmac-Thanks! I'm going to email both here in about 5 minutes, hopefully they have something available.

What Danny said. Especially companies like Halliburton, pretty much always hiring, because its so damn big. A friend of mine just got a job with them in North Dakota, he's 25, not even done with college, but has construction experience. He worked 235 hours the last 2 weeks. good pay, then add on that ridiculous overtime... its completely up to you how much you want to work into overtime, they do not set limits like most smaller companies. You probably have to sell your soul to the devil, but fuck it when you're making 6 digits straight outta college.

QC work for Black Diamond in SLC?

Evan Sanders wrote:Why would they hire engineers if the job doesn't require anything learned from an engineering degree?

You might be a better engineering student than I was, but much of my takeaway from engineering school was the ability to quickly digest and apply technical concepts.

I was lucky enough to get a job as an engineer after school, but can't use any of my old textbooks as references and have had/gotten to learn a whole world of new stuff. Keep an open mind about where your skills will be useful and what positions you may be qualified for. Also, knowing how to interact with other humans appropriately is something that helps you stand out in our world.

Getting some really good information, this is the kind of stuff I needed.

Does anyone have any personal experiences from O&G work? Like potential job responsibilities and such? It's sounding like a pretty good opportunity to me (or hopeful opportunity anyway).

Ben-already looked into BD. Their website has said there are no intern position available for about the past year. I'll probably try to email them, but the information about interns on their site is pretty specific. I also emailed Wired Bliss a couple times since they're in Loveland now, but I haven't heard anything back.

Evan,

Email me a resume. I have a MS in Matls Science from UTK circa 1994. Liaw was my advisor. I work for CTS Electronics in Albuquerque,NM and we had an open position for a Matls Science Co-op. I can also forward your resume to friends of mine at Coors in Golden, Co.

matlinb (at) gmail (dot) com.

Bill Matlin wrote:Evan, Email me a resume. I have a MS in Matls Science from UTK circa 1994. Liaw was my advisor. I work for CTS Electronics in Albuquerque,NM and we had an open position for a Matls Science Co-op. I can also forward your resume to friends of mine at Coors in Golden, Co. matlinb (at) gmail (dot) com.

Just sent you an email. Thanks!

NREL is going through massive budget cuts, so good luck with them, and personally I say go to BD see if you can get in that door. How awesome would it be to be a mat. scientist for a climbing company. Awesome.

I'm a senior staff member at Sandia Natlional Labs in engineering physics and we are always hiring interns in every area of engineering sciences. The work is cutting edge and exciting/difficult. As an intern, you are usually hired to work directly with a senior staff member and get a lot of one on one help/learning opportunities. I believe the pay for interns is good to boot. Experience at a national lab always looks good on a resume/CV.

If you are interested, go to sandia.gov and browse for internships on the employment page and if anything looks interesting, PM me the job posting and resume and I can see how I can help put you in direct contact with the person who is actually hiring the intern.

PM if you have any other questions about employment/school, I'd love to help anyway I can.

Also, don't sell yourself short and don't let a prospective employer know you'll work for peanuts or that's all they'll give you. Even with the tough economic times, there is a shortage of Americans who have an engineering background, so employers need you just as much as you need them. With confidence, expect a competitive salary/benefits and you might be surprised when you actually get it.

I would also not pitch myself as a recent grad with little experience looking to gain experience, but as a person recently educated in the most cutting edge materials science disciplines ready to contribute to the company's projects.

I definitely agree with posters who said not to sell yourself short. If you have a good GPA and a strong body of coursework, there's no reason for you to do an unpaid internship.

I also study materials and will graduate with a B.Sc. in the spring--I have some work experience but not all of it is directly related to what I want to do. Don't accept the first thing that comes along if it's not related in any way to the full-time job you'd like to do when you graduate. Especially for materials, which is a small field, it can be hard to find the right job/internship/experience for you.

Go to career fairs! For large companies, you will often need to get onto a recruiter's radar in order to have any sort of chance at all.

I visited NIST in Boulder when I was there for a conference. They are not as well-known as some of the other national labs, but they do some pretty cool work, some of it materials related. Many national labs like NIST or NRL will have listings of people who work on specific projects, e.g. this page: nist.gov/mml/analytical/ino…

I know friends who have gotten internships by emailing the leader of the project specifically and requesting (in so many words) a job. Always give them an out--if they can't hire you, is there a division doing related work which might be looking for interns?

Good luck and keep the faith. :)

Evan Sanders wrote:Does anyone have any personal experiences from O&G work? Like potential job responsibilities and such?

Skills required for these jobs include: Staying awake, driving long distances, having common sense (engineers struggle with this), leadership, living out of a suitcase, working in dirty and hot or cold environments, working for several days straight with no sleep, being on call 24 hours a day.

Most engineers I know of get hired to be logging (wireline or LWD) engineers or directional drillers, though some are mud engineers and frac engineers. All of these jobs involve running a small crew, operating sophisticated equipment, interpreting data, understanding how equipment works so you can troubleshoot it when it goes wrong (this can include electical, mechanical, acoustic, nuclear, geological, material, and chemical theory), and communicating with customers.

Tim-I'll be contacting you today for sure. Thanks for the tip on not selling myself short. I've just been unsuccessful at finding paid internships, so i just thought i would lower my standards a little bit for experience purposes.

Erika-Been attending career fairs/emailing directly for a while now. We have an expo that is specifically engineering jobs only, but there are very few who are looks for Matl Science majors, a majority of them want mechanical/industrial/civic, and there are enough MSE majors that go to make it extremely competitive for even second and third choices of internships. It's cool to hear from someone who is also in Materials. Thanks for the tip on NIST though.

Wyatt and Shane-thanks for all the info on O&G work!