Engineering Is an internship necessary for a Mechanical Engineering degree?

Internships almost always look good on a resume. Since you need to interview for the position in competition with other students, and you gain some relevant work experience, this is a good indication that you will do well in subsequent interviews and subsequent work. Think of it as a screening experiment for employment.

This is a "tends to", and "for the most part", kind of judgment. I would definitely consider hiring a new grad engineer without internship experience, but I find that most of the students I hire have internship experience.

 

I would definitely try to get an internship. My GPA was relatively low compared to lots of people, but because I had a 7month internship I feel like I'm getting a little more exposure than some. If you land an internship at one of the oil companies (Shell, Halliburton, Schlumberger, ect) you can expect to make ~$30 an hour which is ridiculous for an internship haha. Good luck!

 

Definitely! I never had an internship that paid that well, just some friends who did. My internship paid like 1/3 of that haha. But all that matters is the experience. The experience from any engineering job far outweighs how much you make.

 

Is research experience just as good as an internship to employers?

 

I'm not sure I know how to answer that question. What I'll do instead is tell you what would go on in my head if I saw research experience on a resume.

• What kind of research is this? Lab work? Prototyping? Data collection? Just what did this person do?
• Is the field of research relevant to this position?
• What does this project tell me about the interests of this applicant?