I found myself in a similar situation about internships, work, and drum corps. I started marching when I was 15 and marched through until my age out in 2011, with my only "break" being a year of senior corps between the two junior corps I marched, to get the opportunity to march with my dad. I majored in Mechanical Engineering, and every summer debated about taking a year off to get an internship in, but my father always convinced me to march while I could, because I could work forever. My age out year occurred the summer after I graduated and I was torn on what to do. I had all but decided to not march and get a job, but once again my dad told me I could only march once more and could work for the rest of my life. I ended up marching my age-out year, and leaving everydays for a job interview as well as landing an interview 3 days before leaving for everydays, and using an iPad all summer to apply for jobs in my free time. I lucked out and one of the hiring majors had been a band guy in HS and college and understood the value of corps to an individual and how I benefited from it. Not only did he hire me, but he was willing to wait and let me start when I returned home, even though the wanted the position filled ASAP. Since then, I've used my corps experience to support myself in interviews by talking about the team building skills, confidence, work ethic, ability to work with different culture/language groups, etc..
Overall, I'd just like to reiterate the most important advice I received. You can work when you're old, you can only march until your age out.
Also, engineering problem solving skills can come in handy with corps related activities such as field lining. My last year I believe we had 3-5 Engineers on field lining and my first year in Scouts we had more engineers in the Mellophone line than Music Majors.
Aaron Vanover, EIT
Western Kentucky University
BSME 2011
05-06 Memphis Sound
07 CorpsVets
08-11 Madison Scouts