I know Smith Group offers a 3 month (or so) summer internship program that is very hands-on. I haven't done this myself, but I know someone who has. They don't sit you in front of a computer and let you CAD away all day. It's more of a learning position. As far as salary goes, a position like this would be worth more than money. If I were a younger me (ie: living at home, no bills, just need a job for beer money) I would take just about anything they offer, granted it's minimum wage or better.

My first internship was after my junior year in my BArch. It's tough going out there with no experience. Thankfully many firms embrace summer student interns so just have some resumes in hand along with a decent portfolio and I'm sure you'll get something. I spent a spring break knocking on doors and got a couple offers. If you know someone in the business, anyone, don't be afraid to use the networking you have available to you. Remember, this is just to get a foot in the door to gain experience. I wouldn't worry about "designing" or how trendy the firm is. Just find a job.

The salary can be all over the place. Just please have some dignity for yourself and don't work for free. Unscrupulous employers will try to take advantage of of the fact you are a student and unexperienced. Don't let that happen as that does nothing to advance the profession. We pay student interns anywhere from $15-17/hr depending on experience, etc. That's at a large firm in a major metro, so expect lower in smaller cities or at smaller firms.

Chili - While I agree that as a student an internship has values beyond money, don't automatically assume the wages earned are for beer money only. Most students have large student debt, rent, car payments and so on. While college isn't the "real world" the expenses surely are.

as a junior / rising senior i got $10/hr if i recall.

small boutique firm doing high end res. & retail in southern california...

whatever you do, don't work for a large firm like gensler, callison, som, nbbj, hok... you won't get the exposure over the summer that you would with a smaller firm.

if you want to be assured of a job show off your rendering skills, if you have amazing rendering abilities that will do the most for you if you dont have experiance already. otherwise having connections helps. i wouldn't expect too much money. like everyone says it will go all over the place depending on who is hiring and how much experiance you have. $10-$20 an hour plus time and a half for overtime... now $20 is alot... but many of my classmates have been able to land that (granted we are in a M.Arch program). Otherwise placed like SOM and KPF pay around $15. I made enough last summer to cover rent and expenses and then some in NYC if you put in the hours. I disagree with holz.box... I think as long as you are put under a good project architect, you can get alot out of it.