How to get an internship in first year?

@supernova777 thanks for that info

It's really simple to start searching for one actually: I searched on the university's and any attached institution's websites for interesting departments which already had upper-year internship vacancies and simply sent an email to the lead professors asking if they happened to need someone with interests x and skills y.
I sent 3 emails, spent some time with 2 departments, and ended up in France for five weeks assisting quite some niche research. Free travel, all-inclusive stay in the professor's farm together with the team, and nice sightseeing.
Don't expect anything in return except for a good resume entry/experience doing something you are actually interested in: if there's one thing that professors like, it's free/cheap enthousiastic labor!

Companies are a whole different story I think, because they need to appoint valuable resources to even try and get you up and running. So those might need some extra convincing...

join google summer of code 2024

https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com

Check with your school if they can help. At least they can tell you companies that have previously shown interest in internships or other work with students.

I think you’d have very low success contacting companies on your own because many want a school as a middleman.

@Bibbit Yeah, it’s hard to convince companies. Where I work view early internships as a cost. It’s hard to come up with appropriate tasks. Even when we’ve had requests from students saying ”There must be simple tasks you want done. I’d happily do insignificant mindless grunt work” - we kinda don’t want to present the image that interning at us would be dull work. And we know the team couldn’t stop ourselves from getting involved and helping out.

Since you may not have much college experience yet, highlight your high school achievements, including any relevant coursework, https://pokeroguegame.io/ extracurricular activities, volunteer work, or part-time jobs.