Structural Engineering Internship
Overall, I enjoyed my internship experience. I think I learned a lot about what structural engineers do on a daily basis and what to expect if I chose that career path. I mostly worked with the structural engineer, though I also got to observe some meetings he had with an architect that helped me understand how the two professions work together. Throughout the internship he explained and showed me how he went about designing the structure of a house. He mostly taught what he'd learned from experience as a structural engineer, rather than all the math problems I would learn in college. If he was busy, I would read some books on structural engineering, which is what I have pictures of as most of the projects were confidential. Reading and actually understanding the books really challenged my information skills. I had to reread parts multiple times and take and retake notes before I understood anything. I was able to recognize some of what I read in what he was showing me of the structural engineering process and the books were a nice heads up for what I’d be getting myself into. Later in the internship, I drafted his paper sketches and notes on AutoCad. There was definitely a learning curve to this, but a lot of it was repetitive so it allowed me to get the hang of it fairly quickly. I got what I wanted out of the internship which was mostly just to get a general idea of the profession and see if it was something I wanted to continue with. I achieved these goals and, while I think I would enjoy structural engineering, it didn’t have the creative aspect I was hoping to gain with architecture.
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