Over the last 3 months I have been applying to various companies for a chemistry internship; however, due the fact I am only a sophmore, no one wants to hire me. I really want some lab experience. Where should I look?

Have you tried "work experience" based applications.

The problem is I am only a sophmore in college, and I have no experience.

Well in the Uk, we can do "work experience" thats to help build experience in a subject, i.e. we can visit ICI and do the techs job, for a period usually 1month, and if you get on well, the school/college will allow you to have say 2-days a week at the specific area.

does your university run any schemes? My old university used to run a scheme called UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) .... perhaps ask some of the department heads, since they might have a bit of spare cash floating about

Get reseach in your university first. Same here, I applied as sophomore and they thought I did not have experience. It is kinda ironic, if you do not hire me how in hell am I going to get experience? But anyhow, companies think that students are retards and cannot learn pretty basic techniques in a short amount of time!

if you're at a university then it's quite likely you're professor's do research. Approach one of them and ask. Work experience will get you quite far in the field of science. Personally, if I didn't have any work experience I wouldn't have gotten into graduate school. If you plan on obtaining a higher degree you'll need it. SO even if you do an internship and work fro free, it'll be worth it in the long run.

zhuam is correct of course, reasearch at your university then get the internships.

I guess it must be different in the states, but I found it relatively easy to get work in industry after two years of study (I worked for Avocado research chemicals doing large scale manual synthesis after my second year). What exactly are you looking for? If you're trying to get a temporary research position in industry I'd forget it without direct university help. You should be looking for some work in production, QC or even the business/admin side (knowledge of how the business works is also very useful).

hey surf guy. i am doing maths at notts. and i wanna get a internship is a financial instutution. or something like that. where do u think i should start?

Definitely apply at your school or at other schools first. I was able to do summer research at Rockefeller the summer after my freshman year, so you just have to research the REU programs that look specifically for freshmen and sophomores. You can't expect to get an industry internship without doing some type of research first.

Depends on your GPA, but the Nat'l Science Foundation in the US has REU internships available, Research Experience for Undergrads, and Soph's are taken into the program - several universities offer these programs, go to http://www.nsf.gov and search for either "REU" or "Research Experience for Undergraduates". I got into it without a 3.0 gpa because I posessed experience working as a crew member aboard a research vessel the previous summer, so it is doable without a 3.0 as well.