I'm new/job at university/careers and future all in one.

[mrchainsaw]

Like I said, I'm new here. I like math and science, that's algebra 2 and chemistry 1(high school). So yeah, I don't understand anything of what you guys are talking about, but I'd love to learn it.
About my future, I'm good at school and I like math and science so I figure a career in math, science, or engineering would be good for me. How hard is it to get accepted into a math, science, or engineering major program at a university? I get all As so I think I should be fine, but just wondering.
Finally, I was wondering if there is any sort of internship/on the job stuff universities offer. I live within 15 minutes of a major university (which happens to have a good engineering department ) and I was wondering if I could get a job there this summer with the math or science departments doing various stuff. I'm 16 by the way.
Thanks.

 

[mrjeffy321]

There are some positions like that available, but it would depend on where you are I suppose and what university it is your living next to.
I think the University of Texas system of schools has a program where Junior and Senior high school students can go and live at the university over the summer and do an internship/research job (or at least they have in the recent past). Mind you, they probably won’t give you a very glamorous job, it will probably be something like 'clean the test tubes' or 'write down the data we tell you', but then again, it could be fun.
For the thing I am talking about, you had to apply by the end of January and then be accepted. They only took 50 males and 50 females total, and apparently I was number 57 on the acceptance list, so this is where my knowledge stops on the program.

 

[Pyrrhus]

There's plenty stuff to do at a University. Currently, I'm a TA at the Civil Engineering department (i used to be a TA for general physics at the Physics Deparment), also there are some RAs (Research's Assistant) but I've not yet come close to those.

I took an intership once, but mostly i was at the designing deparment. I worked with AutoCAD, ETABS, SAPS and SAFE. I started in charge of architectural designs, mainly just checking for minor mistakes like measures, then making basic layouts, and then more complex. On the end of the intership i was working with structural designs, basic rigid frames (1-2 story buildings). Oh and once i was working on a truss design too. The job experience i found it good, but i didn't get to do most of the "cool" stuff

 

[mrchainsaw]

Thanks for the info.
Mrjeffy, how did you find out about that job? Any idea about how I would go about finding out if the university offers anything like that? It sounds like it'd be fun.

 

[mrjeffy321]

My Chemistry teacher suggested it to me two years ago. He had a student accpeted the year before, and they worked on some project with a bunch of other people (although I am not sure what exactly it was, but I do know there was a large poster chart of the data involved).

You can always ask the university, or more specifically someone in the department you want to work in, by phone or email. Check their website too see if they have any annoucements there aswell.