Student Engineering Intern

During the fall semester of the 2023-2024 academic year, I worked as a student engineering intern for the Department of Transportation, Airports department. Through this position, I learned more about the daily processes and responsibilities of an engineer. The airports department worked on statewide airport projects which included routine maintenance of the airports to more special projects. I worked directly with the engineers and secretaries to ensure that these projects would run smoothly.

In terms of my responsibilities, I was in charge of ensuring that the change orders for the projects were reviewed and approved in a timely manner. This ensured that the airport projects could be processed and run as efficiently as possible. I also created projects on our system for the engineers to use so they could upload and access project documents. Minor responsibilities included scanning, uploading, and organizing documents. By the end of the job, I also helped in training the newer hires and answering questions that they may have about their responsibilities.

From this internship, I majorly learned how to work in a team. Since these were massive statewide airport projects, the projects would run through many departments. I had to be able to work with the other departments well and communicate effectively. Most of the communication would be done through email, so being able to explain instructions well was required for the job. I also improved in being a self-directed learner. The office environment was always fast-paced as we would be working on various projects at once so taking the initiative to ask questions on anything that I was confused about was really beneficial. Overall, I was able to experience what it was like to work in a fast-paced team-focused professional environment.