How to get an internship now - and why!
About the Presentation
You can prepare for a career in engineering by focusing on building your STEM skills and by getting an engineering internship in a field that interests you. Internships are an excellent way to gain insight into engineering fields, experience in engineering work, and exposure to engineering challenges.
In an engineering internship, you’ll likely work on an interdisciplinary team gaining valuable connections and references. Not every internship is the same, and what you do day to day can vary widely depending on the company. Some may give you more hands-on experience and others may provide a chance to shadow key executives or take part in weekly meetings. One company may offer you the chance to dive deeply into a single project and present your findings to company leadership; another may give you the chance to work across departments, giving you broad exposure to many parts of a company at once. Asking yourself what you want to get out of an internship is critical to knowing what’s going to be the best fit for you. What’s most important is to understand what you’re going to get out of an internship and to check if that aligns with your career goals.
Friday, November 16, 2018
About the Presenters
Ryan Faithe - Junior
Ryan interned for Applied Medical, a vertically integrated medical device manufacturer based out of Rancho Santa Margarita, California. He worked as an intern for Polymer Processing Development in the Extrusion Manufacturing Department. As an intern he was entrusted with completing equipment qualifications, trouble shooting manufacturing processes, and completed several design projects. Ryan’s greatest achievement of the summer was the design and assembly of a tripod cart used by machine operators to safely and efficiently transport an extrusion crosshead. This project was of high priority due to the cost and safety hazard associated with the crosshead. His design proved to be a success and his team leader informed him that they will be using his old engineering drawings to order the parts to make a duplicate cart to be used on other manufacturing lines. Ultimately, this experience affirmed his desire to become an engineer and the close connections he made have already helped him with finding other opportunities.
Tammy Jackson - Senior
Tammy interned with JR Simplot Company from the start of spring semester to the end of the summer. As an intern, she worked as a construction manager for the new installation project. Once that project was completed she was tasked with adjusting a clean up procedure to maximize efficiency, isolating equipment to determine the location of system error, and supervising consultants and contractors while they performed additional construction work or testing.
Omar Betancourt - Junior
Omar was a mechanical engineering for L3 Technologies, in the Electron Devices division, located in Torrance, CA. L3 produces traveling wave tubes, and they are used in guidance systems, space communications systems, and military aircraft radar. His tasks involved developing 3D solid models and their 2D engineering drawings on SolidWorks to set up thermal experiments to improve heat dissipation within Microwave power modules.
Michael Roberts - Senior
Michael worked as a machinist at Primary Weapons Systems over the summer and currently still works there.
“I have learned a lot from my internship. If you are focused at work, you can see many of the principles taught in our classes. The real world aspect of it is also really enlightening – everything from the economics of production, to what it takes to hold tolerances during production runs.”
Mei-lin Fong - Junior
Mei-lin had the opportunity to intern this summer at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. She worked on creating and formatting an animation of a flexible wing aircraft utilizing MatLab.
Dan Brown - Senior
Dan interned at SGW Designworks here in Boise where he am still contracted through the New Product Development Lab. His tasks last spring semester were included using SolidWorks design tables and Excel to automate configuration and documentation of mechanical assemblies, researching building codes as they apply to jobs, and completing design packages for multiple industries and product types that include detailed drawings for fabrication and assembly, BOMs and product specs.