Start planning NOW for next summer's internships?

I do a lot of writing for IEEE-USA's Today's Engineer, where my latest article covers a bunch of internships and fellowships that students can take advantage of in the summer of 2010.

These are great opportunities, but why did I write about them in November? Easy: the application deadlines are just a couple of weeks away.

Internships and other work-experience programs are just about the most valuable things you can add to your resume before you graduate and start searching for a full-time job. They put you in the real world, give you the perspective of the workplace, allow you to meet valuable contacts, and let you try new things. Plus, they don't last forever, so you always enter an internship with an end-game in mind.

But fitting an internship into your college schedule can be difficult at best. I remember needing to heavily rejigger my course schedule so I could fit an internship into my senior year, and even then, I still wish I'd picked one that offered at least a tiny stipend. The cost of getting to the internship twice a week sucked so much money from my starving-student wallet that I could barely afford to eat that semester!

But man, was it all worth it. I'm still in contact with some of the people I met on my internship, and I put the lessons I learned to practice on an almost daily basis.

So anyway, early planning... Companies that have regular intern programs can't accept an unlimited number of students. They might take one or two at a time, and often start taking applications months in advance. If there's a company in your neighborhood you really want to intern for, chances are there are a hundred other students salivating for that opportunity, too. Which means you'd better get your application in before them. Like, now.

You can start your search at Experience.com, where you can use the job-search feature to specifically look for internships.

So don't delay. Start thinking about it, and then get moving!

Where are the high-tech jobs? NYC, Silicon Valley and Austin top the list

Where should you focus your job-search efforts? According to a report from Dice.com, the most high-tech job listings are in Silicon Valley* and New York City.

Outside of NYC, the entire Northeast area is apparently experiencing high-tech job growth, especially in New Jersey.

High-tech job postings in Charlotte, NC, and Austin, TX, are also up 45% and 31% since the beginning of the year.

Job postings aren't up that high percentage-wise in NYC and Silicon Valley, but the sheer number of jobs in those areas puts them at the top of the list. New York City job postings are up 16%, while Silicon Valley saw a 6% rise.

So keep this in mind when you're job searching, and narrow your search to look at some of these areas.


* Since Silicon Valley isn't a real city, it's sometimes hard to search for jobs in that area. Use cities like San Francisco, San Jose, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Mountain View and Milpitas for your searches. Or check Wikipedia for the complete list of "Silicon Valley" cities.

Licensing: Your Key to Working Anywhere, at Any Time?

Not every engineering field requires the people practicing it to be licensed. But one field that does is civil engineering, and here's the tale of one man who has just landed his 50th civil engineering license, allowing him to work anywhere in the United States.

Tracy Letzring is also a licensed environmental engineer and registered structural engineer. He fully admits that having all of these licenses gives him and his company a marketing edge over the competition, but in practical matters, it also lets him work for any client in any state or city, and not just in his own neighborhood.

Working in different states requires different knowledge and skills. For example, Letzring says that California's license required him to learn about seismic migration, while he needed to learn about Arctic conditions to land his license in Alaska.

How much do you need to think about licenses in these particular careers? It's up to you. But you do want to plan ahead. It would suck if you had to turn down a job or couldn't land a client because you were licensed in one state but not in its neighbor. Something to consider...

Nuclear Engineering Jobs are Hot

If you're looking for a high-tech career with nowhere to go but up, then you can't go wrong with nuclear engineering.

More than just nuclear power, nuclear engineers are also vital for work in physics, medicine, imaging, and more. It's an essential field, and it's growing. According to a 2008 article from USA Today, there are now five times more nuclear engineering students than there were early in the decade.

If new nuclear power plants get approved in the next few years, it could mean hundreds of new engineering jobs. Heck, worldwide, new nuclear power could result in thousands upon thousands of jobs. That's the expectation in the UK, where 11 new nuclear power plants are currently being debated. (And yes, chances are that the majority of new nuclear jobs will be created outside the U.S., but the States still has the best nuclear training programs, so you're in the right place to make sure you get the best knowledge possible to get started in your career.)

Want to know more? Here's a great profile of a working nuclear engineer, and here's another one from an engineer who's just started out in his field.

Ireland Wants More R&D Workers

Interested in working overseas? Then Ireland might be the place for you. The country is already well-known as one of Europe's technology centers, and now the government has rolled out a new program to make it easier for foreign researchers to work there.

The new Euraxess.ie web portal aims to make it easier for R&D people to take contracts in Ireland, and even to bring their entire families there for the extent of their contract. You won't even need a green card or work permit, that's how much they want you there.

Euraxess is actually EU-wide, but this new Irish version of the portal takes things several steps further that most other European countries and making the country even more attractive to researchers.

Give it a try. But if you get a job there, don't kiss the Blarney Stone. You don't want to know why.

Environmental engineering jobs up 25%

Looking for a specialty for your engineering career? Think green. Environmental engineering jobs are up 25.4% according to a new book, 200 Best Jobs for Renewing America by Laurence Shatkin.

Shatkin's top ten green jobs are full of engineering specialties. Industrial engineer jobs are up more than 20%, geoscience jobs are up 21.9%, and other jobs for environmental scientists and specialists are up more than 25%.

The jobs all pay pretty well, too. According to Shatkin, the average environmental engineering job pays $72,350.

I just did a quick job search on Experience.com, and there are, at this moment, more than 20 jobs that fit into these categories.

Give 'em a look and see what appeals to you!

Are You An Extreme Programmer? Or a Hybrid Champion?

Are you up to a programming challenge? IEEE will once again hold its IEEE Xtreme Programming Challenge this October 24th. Teams will have 24 hours to solve a programming challenge that will be revealed when the competition opens that day at 00:00:00 UTC.

This is specifically for teams at universities with IEEE student branches -- and if you're not already involved in your student branch, you should be.

Interested? Don't delay - if you want to compete, you must register by October 12!

Meanwhile, registration is now open for next summer's Formula Hybrid International Competition. This is a really exciting event, where teams of college and university students design, build, and race high-performance, plug-in hybrid vehicles. It's held at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, NH, every year, and attracts teams from all over the world.

Formula Hybrid attracts not only some great minds, but some very interested recruiters, who look to this competition to find their next great automotive engineers. It's a great way to examine green technologies, and a perfect way to practice teamwork and learn from your peers.

Registration for the 2010 Formula Hybrid competition opened this week, and closes in mid-December. That leaves you several months to create your vehicle, time you'll really need. Give it a try!

Any other competitions you're excited about this year? Let us know in the comments section!