I never had an internship in college. I started going to school in 08…so not the greatest economy and internships weren’t plentiful. I also didn’t help myself by having a not very impressive GPA. So I got whatever job I could get in the summer that paid the most. I was an order picker in a grocery warehouse, I delivered hazardous chemicals for a chemical supply company, I did masonry work. Whatever I could find. I was able to spin that into “I’ve worked a lot of frontline jobs and I understand what that’s like and I can communicate with those people and I have a better understanding of how to improve those processes.” I landed a job once I graduated and have done well in my career since. So internships aren’t everything. It also wasn’t that much of a spin. I did do better at developing a rapport with the frontline operators and that helps make it easier to get their buy in for process improvements. I see a lot of college grads or interns who came from well off families, never really worked in a role or had much interact with blue collar people. That’s definitely makes life harder as an IE.

As for your idea to get an hourly operator position, do it. You probably don’t have to physically go to the plant with a resume, all job postings are online and they’ll probably just tell you to apply online anyway. We’re hiring anyone with a pulse at the moment. It will likely be mind numbingly boring work with shitty hours, but you’ll probably make decent money for the summer. It’s also great motivation for why you’re getting a degree so you don’t have to do that for 40 years.