What went will on my internship project was that I understood everything, able to explain and talk about it to other people, and was also just able to do complete it. What I did was traffic analysis and draw layouts of certain parts of the project. What I should've done differently was maybe do my project in a more efficient way by learning the little tricks on MicroStation first, and maybe ask if there were more things I could do. I think I could've accomplished more if I knew what other parts of the project I could actually help out with. However, maybe if there was more information I would've gotten overwhelmed by it all, but who knows. What stands out to me is how there really is so much work and background research that goes into just the very first stage of the project. I'm curious to know what else goes into a project like these after this phase.
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Advice I would pass on to future interns would be to definitely choose an internship they think they would at least remotely be interested in. Well of course to try for their dream job and #1 choice first, but if that doesn't work out, make sure where ever it is at, they think they will enjoy for a month. Not only what the job is, but also the environment of it. After going to the site visit and if they can't see themselves enjoy going there for a month, they might want to rethink it unless the job really interests you. I think an important skill for a student to be successful at their internship is definitely be willing to learn as well as advocate for themselves if they don't feel like they are doing enough. Their mentor, like my mentor, might be a pretty busy person, and doesn't have the time to keep checking in. I think a student could develop these skills by just making sure they are willing to learn.
My internship has really inspired me to think more about college because it's made me realize that it really isn't that far away. It definitely feels like it is, probably because I'm still in high school, but its less that 2 years away. And I should really be preparing for it now. Many people around the office that I've talked to, always bring up the question of where do I want to go for college. I always answer with I'm not exactly sure yet and haven't narrowed down my options either, but I've realized that I probably should start doing that. The process of that might still be very long since I still am not sure what I want to do in my future, but this internship has helped me narrow them down just a touch. Like I still am sure I would like to go to a school that has a good engineering program, but I still haven't decided if I want to stay here or leave. A woman who works here (who I don't know the name of because she always refers to me as "my friend" so I haven't asked for hers) recommended me to not go to a UC school because they are about to raise their prices. So I might take that into consideration if that is actually true or if I am unable to get financial aid or something like that.
I am most thankful for my co-workers as well as just getting this chance of working with them. My colleagues have been extremely friendly and have always seemed willing to help me with any questions I had. It may not seem like a huge deal, but I was pretty nervous to see how my colleagues were because I did not want to be working with rude unpleasant people. But luckily, they were the complete opposite and I am very thankful for that. Along with that, I'm very appreciative of the internship program because I really think it was beneficial to us all to just experience more things in the "real world." I gained a new appreciation of working independently, but also the appreciation of the group work that we do at school. I could see that collaboration really is important in this work environment. Meaning the group projects that we do at school, actually helps us down the road.
This week one of thing things I was really surprised about was how quiet the environment was. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting but I really wasn't expecting it to be as quiet as it is. Another thing I was surprised about was how friendly everyone was. I also wasn't sure what I was expecting about that either, but everyone I came in contact with smiled and said goodmorning. However, the most surprising thing to me was realizing how much I needed to learn to understand the job. So far, I have been getting myself used to using the program called MicroStation. I've also learned about how they figure out their budget for certain projects. I'm sure there is much more to learn which I am looking forward to. I'm not exactly sure if this would be considered CalTrans's mission statement, but the company manages the highway system as well and public transportaion. It being called California Department of Transportation, I believe their goal would be to keep the people safe on highways and roads, but also continue to create changes that would help in the future. I see this in their work by seeing their past projects and the ones my mentor has told me about. An example would be how there was a project they had where there was a center divider that moved at certain times of the days to help traffic flow. I'm not aware of a lot of their past projects, but the few that I have learned about are ones that either benefit the traffic flow or help future potential problems.
My hope for this internship is to gain more knowledge and experience in civil engineering, but also just working in the real world. For a while now, I've just always assumed engineering was something I was intersted in. However, since that's such a broad field, I think gaining more experience in this particular type of engineering will help with figuring out what I want to do.
My dream for this internship is for me to have a great time working at this company. I want to gain a lot of information on what the people actually do there, and to see how exactly the projects happen. My fear is that I end up not enjoying learning about what they do there, and realizing that what they do there is not for me. I also fear that I won't grasp what they do quick enough since everything will be so new to me. Therefore, I will try my hardest to learn and follow along, so that I can figure out if I would enjoy that as a career or not. My internship site visit day started off with a large cup of coffee. I couldn't help but be very nervous and anxious to meet my mentor. I met Frank Contreraz at 9am and we began by walking to the building and him giving me a mini tour. The beginning half of our meeting was figuring out paper work information for me to officially intern there. The second half was the interview portion where I went through the paper but also just asked clarifying questions about civil engineering. I followed the structure of the Mentor Interview Questions paper, but from those questions I made sure to branch out and to ask other things as well.
Some project ideas that we discussed were just a few that had to do with me gaining experience with the programs that they use. The two he mentioned were Microstation and Civil 3D. I would be getting familiar with either but also coming up with ideas on how to do the certain project their company had been given. He mentioned maybe something having to do with the I-8 but we didn't go into a whole lot of detail about it. We plan to discuss more about it next time. |