[twodeko]

I thought I would start a thread for my own interests and the interests of others! I am finishing up my first year of Electrical Engineering and had a nice chat with one of the leading faculty here, and I asked him what he thought I should to in order to further special in the audio field of Electrical Engineering. His immediate response was to look into these two opportunities.

I am from Chicago, IL and attend Iowa State University. I will look in the midwest area, but does anyone here know of some good opportunities or want to tell me about their internships and co-ops. All the help I can get would be much appreciated!

[edit] Shure (link) is based right outside of Chicago, that is a starter!

 

[viator122]

I don't like to be a downer, but you should know that many summer internships are offered to students finishing their 3rd year of school.

However, that's not to say you can't get an internship, just that it may not be easy. The best place to start would be your school's career services center.

 

[twodeko]

oh i know that some of those have higher requirements but it doesn't hurt to start looking does it?

i may chat with them sometime this week

 

[go_vtec]

Most of audio equipment related companies/industries rarely offer internships to first year students. Even if they did, it will be very limited engineering experience and most likely to be book keeping/inventory checking. Actually the number of internship offers by these companies are very limited and they are mostly directed to junior (3rd/4th year students as try-out for their future employments).

If I were you, I would check with your school's career center to see if they have any offers or contacts. You will probably need to check some big names TI, Motorola, Yamaha, Sony, and so on to see if they have offer for internship under employment listings. Good luck!

 

[CMacDaddy]

good luck, I tryed for internships my freshman year and got nothing but interviews. They interviewed about the top 30-40 of the freshmen and only gave 2-3 jobs . Maybe you're in a different situation, but dont be afraid of failure this early.

Ask the person you talked to about some places that he knows about or if he knows anyone that could get you an interview.

If all else fails, just try to find a job in the audio industry that will at least make it seem like you learned some stuff. Try being the audio guy at a retail store, or work as a lower level employee for a company you woulud want to work for later.

good luck

 

[twodeko]

aaah... all wonderful advice guys. i figured that if i had only one year of experience i would not be getting to heavy into the engineering, but this has opened my eyes quite a bit here.

i will go ahead and talk to him some more, but the last thing i want is a book keeping job... i can find that somewhere else and get paid more probably.

there is a local hi-fi shop in a suburb so i might go take a look at that, the idea of working for another company with audio is a good one

 

[bLue_oNioN]

What sort of classes have you taken so far?

 

[Born2bwire]

I just talked with Shure today. I think that the only real EE internship position that they have left is for coding embedded signal processor. Still, no harm in sending them your resume. Neat thing too, they're raffling off a set of E2C's from the resumes that they received at the job fair. /me crosses fingers.

You'll also want to start in the Fall lining up internships. About half of the companies choose their interns in the Fall, others wait until Spring. The government internships especially are usually early deadlines. If you're from Chicagoland then give Argonne Labs a try. I interned there twice but the actual EE work was few (they misread Comp E as Comp Sci, still, the group that I was with did a lot of EE work and promised that if I ever came back that they would line up some real work). Anyway, I mention Argonne because I they take all class standings. I worked there the summer before college and my second year.

 

[drewd]

You're a little late this year, I think, but don't let that discourage you. I interviewed for one about a month before it started, so it does happen (and I was lucky enough that it turned into my full-time job when I graduated).

Your engineering department should sponsor job fairs which are also draws for internship recruiting. Don't be shy about considering an internship outside of the area, also. Most companies will pay a portion of your housing expenses, or provide an apartment for a group of interns.

Join the IEEE, if you haven't already. The dues for a student member are very low, a fraction of what the regular dues are. Your local IEEE section is a great resource for networking and finding internships.

Finding an internship in the audio field is going to be very hard, I'm afraid. It's a pretty narrowly focused, small market that is, for the most part, dominated by overseas players. The vast majority of EE work is in the digital domain or in power distribution. You can probably see by the course offerings at your school that the analog domain doesn't get a lot of attention. But don't let that get you down and keep working at it. If you don't find anything for this summer, start looking in August. Visit corporate web sites, talk to your IEEE student branch sponsor and keep your eyes out for university recruiting visits.

An internship is not only a great way to get experience, it's also nice to have some money in your pocket and you'll get some real-world experience to help you decide if the specialization that you're considering is right for you.

By the way, my employer, Micron Technology, has a great intern program.

Good luck!

-Drew

 

[twodeko]

aaah, thank you for the constant updates and replies!

so far, i have taken an Electrical Engineering (185) problem solving class that introduced us further to imaginary numbers, electronic equations... etc. and it had an additional lab that showed us basic components and was taught around C programming.

now i am in CompSci207 (java) and another EE lab class (186x) that has taught us MatLab, vaguely covered PSpice and had more demonstrations.

i have not had any circuits classes yet, but that should consist of the majority of my schedule next semester.

once i refine my resume here, i shall send it to a couple places... shure and argonne for sure. its not that i don't want to leave my area, just that it will be my first summer between college and i would rather spend it at home before i try and tackle some cross country internships and coops later during my college career.

can i ask what kind of work you did at Argonne and what you have heard about Shure?

thanks again!

 

[Born2bwire]

At Argonne? Let's see here... The first time I worked there I was assigned to the Chemical Technology Department with a researcher that wanted to start up a program looking at photonic crystals (crystals that have the property of preventing the propagation of EM waves at specific wavelengths). I first read through a few papers she gave me, compiled a summary, and then tracked down the papers that the paper referenced and did the same. I eventually compiled a small database of papers about photonic crystals with a summary of each paper. I then wrote a report summarizing various techniques for fabricating silicon photonic crystals that are designed with 1.55 micron wavelength in mind (telecommunications). The second time I worked there was when they mistook my major to be Computer Science. I was assigned to the Advanced Photon Source (particle accelerator) with the Controls Group (they design and monitor the devices on the beam line for vacuum, RF switching, and one more thing, cooling maybe?). My first task was to design a small java library for communicating with devices via serial port (was easy since the functionality that they wanted was easily provided in Sun's Java Communcation API). I then used the library to create a Java program that would communicate via serial port to a power supply and via ethernet to a certain board (they had a house protocal called EPICS that they use to communicate with just about every device on site). The entire test setup was designed to automatically program the power supply to apply a test voltage to various inputs on a card in a chassis. The card was designed to monitor the power being supplied by the chassis and the power the chassis was sending to the cards in it. So the power supply would apply a test voltage and then the program would retrieve the measured voltage back from the card. In this way, I would compare if the measurements were accurate and whether or not the triggers were occuring correctly. I ended up doing this program as a GUI and I adapted the code to test another set of boards designed for a similar purpose. I also soldered a few test boxes together. I then programmed a simulation device in PLC to act as an array of relays to test a vacuum controller. Finally I used OrCad to layout a series of cables to be used to hookup the simulator to another device for future tests.

Last summer I did not do an internship but worked on a research project here on campus. I didn't get paid much but it made good references and the work was very interesting. I worked with a project called Hovercraft Testbed for Decentralized Control (HotDec) and assembled and tested hardware for the first half of the summer. Then the second half I designed a new thruster housing for the fans, fabricated them using SLA, and then devised a program that interacted with the hovercraft's computer to test the thrusters. Using the collected data, I provided a steadystate model of the thruster for them to use in their control algorithms. In addition, I left my hardware and software to be used by a group of undergrads who are tasked with designing better thruster housings and fans. This was probably the most rewarding of my jobs since it had the most engineering to it and the guy who ran the lab made it a point for me to get some applicable experience instead of just learning how to surface mount.

As for Shure, it sounded like that they were only looking to fill a few positions, but the only one I remember is the one I was interested in and that was doing embedded systems programming for DSP. Looking at the job fair's handout, Shure stated that they were looking for Juniors, Seniors, or Grad students.

Argonne's deadline for apps is back in the Fall I believe so you probably have missed it. I got the job at HotDec on the spot the day of my last final so may have a larger possibility of getting an undergrad research position (but you really gotta network to get these, they rarely advertise that they need help and only a few projects usually take on paid undergrads).

 

[twodeko]

and for that, Born2bwire... i thank you very much for you help and support with this!

i figured by contacting my teacher, it was a good step towards bringing myself into the community here at school and would help if he ever heard of someone in need of a audio oriented electrical engineer.

i will get my resume out there to express my interest from the beginning, and then hopefully have a couple internship oppotunities come junior and senior year. i realize the classes i am taking are far from a developed understanding of the principles of electrical engineering, but since analog design (vlsi) isnt that spread out in interesting classes here i thought that i would look into the co-op and internship scene.

engineering interests me very much and my discussions here at headfi (despite the shoddy servers) have really influenced my desire to learn more about audio electronics and advance my career in that direction. thank you again for all the help and hopefully all works out well here and i will have some nice opportunities like building a hovercraft at some point in time.

btw... a solid chunk of that EE185 class was about networking, i have heard that word so much and am beginning to understand how important that is.

ben

 

[Elec]

I don't really have any specific advice, other than make sure you get some sort of internships and co-ops before you graduate, regardless of what you have to do to get them. My major was computer science and I was looking pretty hard core for both in 2000 and 2001, when the bottom fell out of the tech market. I was never able to line up a co-op or internship before I graduated in 2003. Now, a year and a half and a couple dozen interviews and probably a hundred applications later, I still don't have a job. In software development and IT at least, it seems these days that close to nobody is willing to take on people with no experience and train them. I've seen ads for "entry level" jobs which want 1-3 years of experience. Although they aren't full-time career level experience, internships and co-ops are way better than nothing. I'm looking at a career change to god knows what before I've even had a career because I just can't get hired. Don't let yourself end up in that situation.

 

[pedxing]

I graduated in 2002 with a MS degree in CS around the bottom of the market. After like 5 internships/consulting jobs, I finally got a fulltime permanent position.

Always try to get an internship or research position every summer. Taking a summer off may look bad to some employers - they will start asking nosy questions like why one summer had a gap. On your spare time, try to catch up with industry stuff. Its handy to have a good hobby related to your professional interests - be adventurous and start your own engineering projects. These are things you can discuss, demonstrate, or show at future interviews.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by viator122 I don't like to be a downer, but you should know that many summer internships are offered to students finishing their 3rd year of school. However, that's not to say you can't get an internship, just that it may not be easy. The best place to start would be your school's career services center.

I started Co-ops in 2nd year.