It really does just all kinda fall together, maybe not in a good way but just kinda happens. You gotta keep moving and keep your head above water, otherwise you can get swept away pretty easy. As I look back my school really wasn't anything like the typical college life. I spent nearly 16-18 hours a day on school work (closed down the library at 10pm nearly everynight from sophomore year on) and when I had a free chance I was working a part time job to pay some bills. My school pushed the work and also had a program they called Co-op, you had an option of doing it in the summer semester between sophmore and junior year, and then after that there were two mandatory semesters of co-op. Basically its a semester where you work in a position relevent to your field. By the time we graduated everyone has a full resume with at least 2 very credible positions and at least for people in my major if you didn't have a job before you graduated you just didn't want one.
I guess in short, internships help out BIG time, as well as if you have a job placement office on campus stay in touch with them and try and talk with alumni or higher ups and see. Also least for me professors can be a great asset at landing jobs.
I took civil engineering, and really use maybe 20% of what I learned, had to use 150% of what I learned to pass the FE exam but what matters is I passed.
If you keep your nose to the grindstone with work and keep your ears open for oportunities you should be pretty good.