Career By Design

We've had some great discussions on internship experiences and what to do once you have an internship.
 At the recommendation of @Aarish Khan, let's share how you found internships.

I'll get us started:

My freshman year I was a volunteer at our university's engineering career fair. Our nametags listed our names and our majors. During a slower part of the day I was going around to offer snacks to the people working the booths, and I heard someone say "You're a Wallace that's in civil? We need to talk!"​ I turned around and realized there was a "Wallace Engineering" booth. I went over and had a lovely talk for a few minutes with the then COO of the company, Tom. He told me about the structural and civil work that they did, and he told me about the minimum educational experience required to apply for an internship.

A couple years later when I was ready to find an internship, I made sure Wallace was on my list of companies to speak with. Due to an emergency meeting, Wallace had to cancel last minute. Since I remembered really liking what Tom Hendrick had to say, I reached out through the company website and asked if they were still looking for interns. I had a preliminary phone interview and then an in-person interview in the office. I was selected to be one of the two civil interns that summer.

Taking that initiative to reach out probably changed the course of my early career. I interned with Wallace Engineering for two summers, two winter breaks, and a couple random other days when they needed help. I've been with the company (now called Wallace Design Collective) since graduating in 2016. Tom is now the CEO. The guy that I interned with is still at the company as well and is a good friend. One thing I've enjoyed doing since joining the company fulltime is going to the career fair where I first met Tom to help recruit new interns and grads. It's fun being able to be that first point of contact for new students and helping them as they begin their civil engineering careers.

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Heidi C. Wallace, P.E., M.ASCE
Tulsa, OK
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I have had quite a few internships.

For the first one, my end goal entering community college system was to work at the local federal shipyard: Pearl Harbor. It is one of the biggest employers on the island and had a lot of people looking to work there. So I applied there through USA Jobs.

Then I transferred to the state university, University of Hawaii at Manoa. I was applying to a lot of local firms but when I was bored, I would apply to a bunch of crazy and fun sounding internships. Somehow I got a call from Disneyland Resorts' engineering team. I was told that I would be considered, but that I wasn't all that strong of an applicant. Luckily the interviews went well and I was able to do that.

Near the end of the Disney internship, I was able to receive an internship offer from Tesla. I asked if it could be pushed to the summer so I could go back and do another semester of school before then. They agreed. Then, I was told that my internship with them was cancelled. So I scrambled to find a new summer internship. I applied all over the place. I had hoped to go back to Disney, except this time with the Imagineering team. Unfortunately by the time that I did receive an offer from the Imagineering team, I had already accepted an internship with NASA that I found on their NASA force website.

After coming back from the summer, I needed to stay local and finish up my senior year. I took an internship with a local construction company, Hawaiian Dredging Construction Company, that I met several times before through the university career fair. Then in my last semester, I only had a couple of easy classes to fill requirements. So I decided to try another internship through the VSFS internship program that I had tried before on USAJobs.

Before graduation, but looking ahead, I wanted to try again at getting a job at Walt Disney Imagineering. I applied to a bunch of jobs on the Disney Jobs website, including internships. I got an interview with their new department for project engineering, and was able to get the job. Looking back, it has been a real crazy ride.

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Maxx Taga EIT
Student/Intern
Glendale CA
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@Maxx Taga Woow just Woow! Never thought these types of internship do exists. These are like my dream come true. I am a Masters's student, can you provide me your LinkedIn or any social media. I would absolutely love to hear more about these internship experiences.
I have attached my contact card to this reply. You can reach out to me from that, or leave your social media here whichever suits you. I would absolutely love to connect with you.
Thanks

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Aarish Khan
Student
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Aarish Khan S.M.ASCE
Windsor ON
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-24-2021 03:27 PM
From: Maxx Taga
Subject: How you found an internship

I have had quite a few internships.

For the first one, my end goal entering community college system was to work at the local federal shipyard: Pearl Harbor. It is one of the biggest employers on the island and had a lot of people looking to work there. So I applied there through USA Jobs.

Then I transferred to the state university, University of Hawaii at Manoa. I was applying to a lot of local firms but when I was bored, I would apply to a bunch of crazy and fun sounding internships. Somehow I got a call from Disneyland Resorts' engineering team. I was told that I would be considered, but that I wasn't all that strong of an applicant. Luckily the interviews went well and I was able to do that.

Near the end of the Disney internship, I was able to receive an internship offer from Tesla. I asked if it could be pushed to the summer so I could go back and do another semester of school before then. They agreed. Then, I was told that my internship with them was cancelled. So I scrambled to find a new summer internship. I applied all over the place. I had hoped to go back to Disney, except this time with the Imagineering team. Unfortunately by the time that I did receive an offer from the Imagineering team, I had already accepted an internship with NASA that I found on their NASA force website.

After coming back from the summer, I needed to stay local and finish up my senior year. I took an internship with a local construction company, Hawaiian Dredging Construction Company, that I met several times before through the university career fair. Then in my last semester, I only had a couple of easy classes to fill requirements. So I decided to try another internship through the VSFS internship program that I had tried before on USAJobs.

Before graduation, but looking ahead, I wanted to try again at getting a job at Walt Disney Imagineering. I applied to a bunch of jobs on the Disney Jobs website, including internships. I got an interview with their new department for project engineering, and was able to get the job. Looking back, it has been a real crazy ride.

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Maxx Taga EIT
Student/Intern
Glendale CA
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@Heidi Wallace Thanks a lot for this thread. Actually love the way you explained, so connecting is the key.​​

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Aarish Khan S.M.ASCE
Windsor ON
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I sort of fell into my internship as well.  I was emailing a member of my city council with questions about the landfills and waste management process of our town, as part of a class assignment. The council member replied via his work email, which was an engineering company. I followed up again asking if they needed any interns. At the time, he said that they were probably full for the summer, but he promised to keep my contact information in case anything changed. About a month later, he reached out again letting me know that something that indeed changed, and they were now looking for an intern again. 

As a general statement "the more people you talk to, the more potential opportunities you come across".   Obviously there are ways to be more and less efficient in this process, but in general being social and curious will help you in this endeavor.

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Christopher Seigel P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineer
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It's a wonderful encounter Engr. Heidi, and it reminds me of you should always find an opportunity to be friend who are already professional who knows more about you even if it's just a small talk, with that you can have a big opportunity in the future. While in my case, I really appreciate professional associations like NSPE and ASCE which lead me me to meet my mentor, it's a big step to involve yourself with these professional affiliations first (locally or internationally). That's my first step that helps me a lot to reach people in the industry. Second I take the opportunity here to connect and contact them and having a leap of faith to receive a response from them and it did, that's why I was able to have an internship in Woodfields Consultant Inc. (WCI)  whose CEO'S is Dr. Reynaldo Medina whose in the Philippine Chapter of the ASCE. I learned that a good network of people as my mentor advise me helps me a lot and gives me confidence that I can have that opportunity by communicating with these for keeps people. Although I receive some rejections, its a way to have a better opportunity too.

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Llala Chrishaye Ocampo S.M.ASCE
Student
City of General Trias Cavite
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The Ohio State University uses Handshake as one of the areas for posting on-campus jobs. In between finding companies I met at Career Fairs, there was this semester in early 2019 where I applied to eight on-campus jobs for a summer internship. I think I had interviews for three; one was for the Energy Management and Sustainability staff right next to a tower I lived in for two years. Something was a little different about this application; the student who was also interviewing me had recognized me from the new building I was living in for my third year, which helped me be memorable. Also, virtually no one was applying for this position, so I was accepted a few days later.

Six months later, I was taking a class for civil engineering under a different professor. After I got a high score on my first exam, he showed me other students were working two hours a week on something interesting; origin-destination matrices of how students use campus bus services every week. I accepted this too and was able to work on both positions until August 2021, a semester after I had graduated with my bachelor's degree.

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Alexander Granato A.M.ASCE
Student
Bexley OH
granato.3@...
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I would to answer this question with a perspective from a Brazilian Engineer Experience. 

While in Civil Engineering School (University), in order to obtain a Engineer Diploma (University Degree) - Here it takes a minimum of 5 years of dedication! You'll probably face some possibilities: 

→  You might meet some cool Teacher or Advisor when you are in a specific discipline (subject /field area) and he might help you to connect with some related Industry or work (professional purposes after graduation). He also might redirects you, as being your research Advisor, so you can move and apply for Job or a Carrier Opportunity informed by him. 

→ A very perceptive pattern in this: "The student has to search by himself for Internships programs", or might try to make a effort on  request/send/submit some curriculum to some local companies. This is a common case for transitioning point from the University to a Professional Career in Brazil. After the graduation they might stay with you, if you have demonstrated some potential or if the Level of Career expected might be suited for your skills.

→ The student (in my case) is responsible for find the biggest answer during his final thesis or dissertation (as so called "Final Course Project" on Brazil / it is subdivided in 2 parts in a year). During your studies (in my case), you have to search for the state-of-art in order to size Beam elements of Post-tensioned Prestressed Concrete at that time. A research topic under the supervision of a great Mentor (an Advisor that gives you some mission).  After that, I discover a firm that has some of most advanced structural engineering designs and technology during that time, and has dominance over the theoretical applications. I have "Interest" , the city was so far distant from mine. They provide some knowledge while they accepted me and receive me there. And they extend an invitation to their internship program because they were trying to help with this.  

So if your fundamentals has some profound meanings, you should expect to receive a great opportunity to start!, a very well intentioned Internship program! 

Thank you, I hope I have contributed a little more,  "also providing some intercontinental frame of reference."

Sincerely, 

AN

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Andre Newinski S.E., A.M.ASCE
Engenheiro Estrutural
AN
Santo Angelo
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The career development center at my university. I was told there were very few civil engineering students entering the co-operative education program, so I was able to work with three (3) different companies. The first two (2) were single semester assignments, and the last company over several semesters.  The last being the company I joined following graduation.

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James Williams P.E., M.ASCE
Principal/Owner
POA&M Structural Engineering, PLC
Yorktown, VA
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