Breaking into ER w/ no Network or Industry Knowledge

I'm a rising junior at a target school who got interested in ER rather late (late sophomore spring). For context, I was pre-med my freshmen year but realized I was already beyond burnt out going into college and that the super long outlook towards actually becoming a practicing physician was not sustainable for me. Decided to switch over to finance as I've had a long-standing interest since I was kid thanks to my parents always wanting to make sure I was financially literate from a budgeting and retirement planning perspective. Obviously, being at a target means hearing about a lot of friends doing IB recruiting this past spring which led me to finding equity research as a field. Really interested me because I like the company analysis focus with a practical application of actually creating an investment thesis given your findings. However, all my family is in medicine or regular jobs - no lawyers, consultants, and most importantly IB/PE/HF. 

I worked directly with patients at a doctor's office going into college. Luckily I was able to get an internship at a "mortgage banking-esque"/consultant-like start-up the next summer where I got some valuable experience in financial modeling (although limited), pptx creation, and industry research practice. Despite it being about product mixes for mortgages and whatnot, I still found the analysis really enjoyable which is why I think ER would be a good fit. Currently doing an internship as an equities analyst for an investment management firm that more or less conducts itself as a FoF. There's been very little specific company fundamental analysis and is mostly general research on market trends for the spaces their in, conducting prospective manager evaluations which includes intro calls, and a summer long independent research project. None of which really get me any direct experience that could position me to really be a standout candidate for ER unfortunately. Still grateful for the opportunity as I've learned a lot and everyone is nice, but just thought I'd be doing more direct/quantitative attribution analysis.

If you were too lazy/busy to read all that, I don't blame you, but what I'm really hoping to know is four key things.

1. Am I already too late for regular recruiting cycle? What are some attainable but reputable firms that I could look at this late?

2. What do technicals usually look like and how can I study for them?

3. I was thinking of sitting for CFA L1 this fall but you have to be graduating within a year? Best study tips/suggestions? Is this too late for recruiting and going to be irrelevant for getting an internship? As in, would be a waste of time for this point in the game and my time could be better spent networking or technical prep.

4. How best to network at this point. From what I've read, it's just as important to network to get into ER as it is for IB - just wondering if this is true. 

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and thank you all in advance for the help.