With so much talk about the internships, I thought I'd throw in a piece of advice given to me when I was in college, from a Regional Chief Pilot. Do an internship at the airline you wish to retire with, not the one you wish to start your career with. Now, I did not do an internship as I could not afford to go a semester without pay but that advice has paid off for at least two or my friends so far.

Classic example. Two guys do internships, one with a regional and one with the mainline. The regional guy gets hired with lowered mins at the regional. The mainline guy gets hired 6 months later with the regular mins. Fast forward a little, the mainline starts hiring and the offers lowers mins to their interns but still the 1000 PIC for the non-interns. They mainline intern gets hired and the regional intern does not have the mins to apply. This is what happened to my friends.