One Year Left To Make The Most Of College

Many of you reading this blog may not have the luxury of time that others have. Maybe you are in your last year of college and want to do whatever you can to help get yourself ready for a job. The reality of graduation is sinking in and you need to get as much experience as possible. Fast. Here’s a quick list of things you should focus on. Odds are you can only do one so start at the top.

Get an Internship

If you have time to get a summer internship, do everything you can to get one. If it will be your first internship, apply literally everywhere that you think have the slightest chance of getting a job at. It is so important to have an internship on your resume when you start applying to jobs. Regardless of what you actually do there, just being able to list employment for a real company is an immediate confidence boost in your abilities.

If it’s too late for the summer, you might still be able to get a co-op, a part-time internship. Even if you’re in your last semester, this may still be possible. It certainly can’t hurt to try. The nice thing about this is that a lot of employers hire students in their last year as sort of a trial period for full-time employment. If they like you, they may ask you to stay. I know quite a few people that have gotten jobs like this.

Join a Club

If you can’t get an internship, a club is the next best thing and if you haven’t been a part of an engineering club yet, it’s more important than you probably think. Engineering clubs provide a lot of real life experience you can’t find in the classroom. They are also much more accessible than an internship. There is no application process or interviews. You just show up and get to work.

Now, there can be that period of acclimating to the people in the club. If you’re not comfortable around a lot of new people, it can be tough. That’s absolutely how I was. After I joined my college’s SAE club, I was pretty quiet the first few weeks. But eventually, I found the best friends I made in college. You make friends quickly when you have to work so closely together towards a common goal.

You’ll get some real life experience as well. Engineering clubs aren’t just goofing around and playing games. Join a club that builds a tangible product and you can learn a ton of useful information in your last year. Some clubs build robots, some planes, some cars, and some is purely theoretical. Whatever it is you want to learn, you can find a club that deals with it.

It may also be a wise idea to join the society for your respective engineering branch. Mechanical engineers have ASME. Civil Engineers have ASCE. Electrical engineers have IEEE. Find the society for your major and join up. Student membership is often free or cheap and it is an excellent place to make connections if you’re willing to put in the work.

Get Your GPA Up

If you can’t get experience outside of the classroom, do the best you can inside it. Get straight A’s. Do extra work. Talk to your professor and your TA’s. If you aren’t working another job and school is your only obligation, you have no excuse to not get the best grades you can get. If you’ve got some club experience or an internship under your belt and aren’t currently participating in either one, keep your grades up as well.

Senioritis is a very real thing, as much as I tried to think that it wasn’t. I certainly got a little lazy during my last semester in college but I finished pretty strong. Keep up your grades as well as you can.

Talk to Everybody

Let people know you’re graduating, whoever you may be talking to. You’d be surprised at the connections you might make. Like they say, “People don’t get jobs. People that know people get jobs.” A recommendation from another person about you goes a lot further than a little experience you might have. Talk to neighbors, family friends, even random people you meet throughout the day.

This includes talking to professors as well. Let them know what kind of work interests you and that you’re starting to apply for jobs. Ask where they think might be a good fit for a new engineer. Professors are often very well connected in the industry since a lot of them were engineers before they became professors.

Keep in touch with friends that have already graduated as well. Quite a few of the engineers I graduated with wound up at the same job because they kept recommending their friends for new positions. Pay it forward, too. When you’ve been working for a little while and hear of someone looking for a job, think about if they might fit in at your company.

Talk to your college advisors as well. They’re used to helping students in your position. See if they have advice for you on what to do, where to apply, or anything else you can do right now to help you get hired.

Lastly, take advantage of any resume reviews or mock interviews that your college’s career center might offer. These are great opportunities to make sure you’re ready for the job hunt once you graduate. This is especially necessary if you don’t have a lot of experience. If you’re not getting a lot of calls back about your resume, it is especially important that you nail every one you get. Practice makes perfect.

Do Your Own Work

If you can’t find experience elsewhere, get it yourself. Would your grandma like a porch in the back of her house? Do you need new cabinets for your kitchen? Design it. Draw them up in CAD software, make the bill of materials, quote the whole job, including labor, and package it up in a binder. You now have a portfolio.

This is experience. This is something tangible you can describe on a resume, show during an interview, and use for future projects. You’d be surprised how much you can learn when you stop waiting for someone else to provide you the opportunity and go after it yourself.

Maybe you have an idea for something you’ve always wanted to design. You’re an engineer. You’ve probably got tons of ideas stewing around in your head. Bring one of them to life. Or get as close to it as you can. Draw the plans. Figure out what you’d need to get it going. This is along the lines of your grandma’s porch except that hopefully, it is something that doesn’t exist yet. A brand new technology. After all, this is the basis of Kickstarter. Find something that you want to see invented and invent it.

Takeaways

Your last year can be a huge eye opener. Graduation always comes up faster than you think it will so you need to be prepared. But in the case that you weren’t as prepared as you meant to be, do these things I’ve listed here. And when all else fails, get the experience yourself. You don’t have to rely on anyone else to be the best engineer you can be.