Late to the game -- advice appreciated!

Hi RE monkeys,

Been lurking for a few months and excited for my first post here. I'm a rising junior at HYPSM and for the last two years I went all in on entrepreneurship. It was moderately successful -- I got my name out there and was featured in some big publications, but I wasn't doing ground-breaking stuff. In recently examining what I really wanted to do with my life, I caught the real estate bug (my entrepreneurial work was not RE-related, but has transferable skills). I'm most interested in capital markets / investment sales brokerage, but if that doesn't happen, I'd be excited to work in REPE or development. I've been utilizing my alumni network and have had some productive talks with brokers, and I'm going to keep that up, as I enjoy networking. I'm also reading Linneman's Real Estate Finance and Investments textbook (shoutout RE WSO for recommending it) and I'm improving my Excel skills.

The main problem here is that as a rising junior this late in the cycle, most brokerages have already closed their applications for internships next summer. That basically means I'll have to get my name in there through a back door, like having a broker recommend me. A lot of my classmates are taking a gap year because of COVID, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards for me.

TLDR: I'm networking hard, reading Linneman, and improving my Excel skills, but I'm really late to the internship cycle. My question to you all -- what else should I be doing to improve my chances of getting a good internship for next summer? And anything more I should be doing to improve my skillset? Any certifications that would be worth doing? One thing I heard from a recruiter: "Your resume is really impressive, clearly a self-starter, but you need to prove your interest in real estate." Tips on how to do that?

Thank you all in advance for any help or advice. I really appreciate how productive the RE threads are on here. Keep up the great work everyone.