Just because your school gave you sophomore status, based on courses taken, doesn't make you one if you're in your first year. Sorry. Most companies are indeed looking for people who have completed two or three years of school. Sorry.
With that said: gizmotx has some excellent questions for you to answer.
Beyond that: Throw a resume up here (feel free to anonymize it somewhat.) Next, look for companies who are contractors, usually with names like "xxx engineering" or "xxx engineering systems" or "xxx systems"; they do a huge amount of work for large non-engineering companies. (When a company like, for example, coke, wants to design a new gizmo - they don't have a bunch of engineers on staff they can quickly allocate to do it; they outsource it to a contractor company.) These are everywhere, located in every big city.
Especially look in places like Detroit, Boston, NYC, SF bay area, Denver, Portland, Seattle, Austin, Houston, Chicago... some with obvious mech history, others with just a lot of work that requires mech be done. Also, look in oil places: texas and the gulf, north dakota, alaska. Huge need for mech engineers there; you can get paid a lot as an intern if you're willing to brave somewhat harsh conditions. Don't limit yourself geographically.
