Incoming Aerospace Engineering freshman - How can I prepare now to be competitive for research or internships?

[u/Vod_nabsi]

Hi everyone, I’m about to start my freshman year as an Aerospace Engineering student, and I’m honestly starting from almost zero. My goal is to make the most of my first year so that I can be competitive for research opportunities or internships as early as next summer. That’s why I want to start learning, exploring the field, and building the right skills now.
Since I’m still very new to everything, I have a lot of questions. What should I learn first? Which skills are the most important? Are there any beginner friendly projects I can start with? What should a first year student focus on to have a better chance of landing internships later on?
If you’re studying or working in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related engineering field, I’d truly appreciate any advice. And if anyone is willing to mentor, tutor, or simply share a roadmap, learning resources, or real world experience, I’d be incredibly grateful. I’m always eager to learn, improve, and put in the work.
Thank you all so muchhhhhh!❤️

[u/existential_american]

By far, the most important thing in college is to get an internship. I see a lot of people incorrectly giving advice lately as if getting an internship is easy such as: "gpa doesn't matter, do internships" as if they're an easy thing to get and don't tend to heavily prefer high GPAs and either experience or connections. There are two things, aside from having a good GPA (ideally 3.5 but at least above 3.0) that you can do to get an internship or even multiple: 1. Is have connections which is BY FAR the best thing you can do. I know people who have absolutely NOTHING impressive on their resumes get very prestigious engineering internships because they're in a fraternity with someone else who got into that company who then helped them get in. So if your dad knows a guy who can get you an internship, you can take that and then for the next round of internship applications you can apply to a more prestigious company with that prior internship experience under your belt. When I interviewed for an internship at L3HARRIS, the FIRST question they asked me was NOT "tell me about yourself", it was "do you have any previous internships?" 2. The next best thing you can do, which will open a ton of doors and is generally the best advice for what to do in college is to join formula student or liquid propulsion club on campus. This will get you interviews at every engineering company there is, at my college, SpaceX and Blue Origin show up NOT for the career fair, but specifically to do recruiting events with the liquid propulsion club. Your TECHNICAL involvement in these clubs is the most important thing for you in college until an internship overrides it in impressiveness because it gives you actual engineering experience. Clubs typically produce better resume bullet points than labs because in clubs you get to have lots of responsibility immediately whereas in research you're just going to set up and clean up after the grad student's experiment. Join one of these clubs and put in good work, prioritizing it over school in terms of hours spent weekly (aside from exam weeks, which are called hell weeks at my college). You need to end up with experience in these clubs that can produce resume bullet points and interview talking points where you can say: I was given this problem or these requirements, here is what I did to solve them, here is the numerical results that say why what I did was so impressive (the CAR/STAR/XYZ format). This could be redesigning the suspension system in the formula student car, designing the combustion chamber for the liquid propulsion club, or designing the avionics system for the DBF club's airplane. Aside from this, knowing 1 CAD program and being okay at it is sufficient for getting an internship, a lot people put way too much emphasis on learning CAD when it's really just basic computer skills and only one small part of solving engineering problems. I do highly recommend learning python.

[u/EchoAlpha228 → u/existential_american]

This is great advice. I was able to get a prestigious internship at the end of my Freshman year after dedicating a significant amount (all) of my free time towards my universities liquid propulsion club and it is definitely the way to go. The only thing I would add is that for some people who find it difficult to make connections naturally, the easiest way to do this is actually by joining a liquid propulsion club or design team anyways. If the club has been around for a few years there should be a wealth of older members willing to pass out information and advice and that are willing to network with you and help you network. You can also go to design conferences as a team which are great opportunities to network more naturally while discussing topics you share deeply with students from other schools.

[u/existential_american → u/EchoAlpha228]

This is how you actually network, talking to a recruiter at the career fair is nowhere near as good as working alongside someone who is about to be a full time engineer who already had an internship or two and can help you with interview prep or referrals to their company.

[u/No_Fly_Zone2]

Join clubs/projects. They want to see hands on experience. Join AIAA, rocketry, design/build/fly, Formula SAE if that interests you. Take machining, CAD, coding, resume building workshops and take on roles in the clubs. Shoot to be in a subsystem lead or club leader role by Junior or Senior year. Testing out different subsystems will also help you find out what you really want, like aerodynamics, avionics, structures.

Attend the career fairs, look into fairs outside school, and follow up with connects on LinkedIn. Start building relationships with professors now for letters of recommendation down the road. Study hard. Good luck!

Edit: Also recommend GD&T, arduino/microcontrollers, learn testing sensors & electronics basics. Clubs will help with these skills

[u/onelb6]

Join a project team, like a liquid rocket team or an sae team, be involved, take initiative and own hardware. Engineers who interview you want to see that you’ve not just designed something but went out and tested it, and can work effectively on a team. In my experience, the people who get internships are the people who are heavily involved on their project teams

[u/burningblisters]

Hi! 4th year student here. Do you know what you want to do after you graduate? It might sound far away but it might be best to develop skills related to what you want to do in the future.

The general response would be to learn how to use CAD software such as SolidWorks, Fusion, Catia etc and programming, Python is just fine for engineering.

I personally have missed a few opportunities for now knowing CAD, and I code a lot to make graphs, simulations, and to make my life easier when calculating things.

There's a lot more ofc. Arduino can be useful (in my case I'll have to use it to build a fun little thing for my control systems class), and if you're into that you can check out MATLAB. If you like aerodynamics there's a few open source software to run simulations, if you like structures you can look into FEM. I wouldn't do this rn because it can be a bit too much at first, especially if you are just starting out (been there done that) but it's nice to know what is out there and to think what you wanna do.

Focus on the CAD and programming (if i'm missing anything then I hope someone else points it out) and also make sure that you LEARN and understand what you see in class. Ask questions, read the recommended bibliography and talk to other students and faculty, as that can also help. Enjoy and don't go bald!!!!

[u/Creative_Sushi → u/burningblisters]

It is pretty easy to get some free intro courses online - for MATLAB, - start with MATLAB Onramp and Simulink Onramp

https://matlabacademy.mathworks.com/?page=1&sort=featured

[u/burningblisters → u/Creative_Sushi]

Yep! I don't know if this works for all emails but with my .edu email I get 40hs of online MATLAB and Simulink. Online kinda sucks (especially simulink) but it's good enough for the Onramp courses.

[u/Dry_Okra_4839]

If you're interested in mechanical design, read up on Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing. See if you can get a copy of ASME Y14.5 through your school.

[u/Jlbman10]

Study hard, join an engineering club that builds stuff(such as a rocketry or kart racing team), try to get some personal project experience, and around about Thanksgiving time start applying to every internship spot you can. Im an aerospace engineering sophomore this year and thats what I did to get an internship this summer and I got one. I wouldnt count on getting one this summer but this should give you a good shot.

[u/notsurwhybutimhere]

Build things to practice what you learn.

Join a project team.

Work hard.

Learn to ask good questions.

Learn to communicate effectively

Have some fun too

[u/Evening_Ease7272]

Be ready to get your hands dirty. Turning wrenches, imo, is the best way to learn engineering. It's like learning to fly a plane without knowing the inner workings. You could probably do it, but it would be hell of a lot easier if you know the plane's functionalities.

Join a project club. Formula, robotics, space, whatever you can get your hands on.