EMC Engineering ServicesOver the summer of my junior year I had the opportunity to work with EMC Engineering Services in Columbus, Georgia. There I worked as a Design Engineer under the instruction of my supervisor who was a professional engineer. I was provided with a curated training program that taught me basic and advanced skills within Civil 3D, once I became comfortable enough with my abilities I was given some simple projects. This included setting up sheet sets to get me comfortable with the formatting of their projects, and some grading work. Afterward I was given larger projects, for example I helped to design a playground on a military bas in Hawaii. I found this internship to be very valuable as it allowed me to network with other engineering professionals and gave me a taste of how my work life may be in the future.
Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES)
In my role with ACES I help to develop presentations and workshops about watersheds for communities. When I help to prepare for the presentation I see all the details that go into hosting a successful workshop. I have to make sure the powerpoint sides are not too dense, send out press releases, and compose pre and post test for the participants among other things. I appreciate that the work I do aligns with my interest, and much of the material I read through when compiling resources is valuable to me. For example I just finished creating a rainwater harvesting manual that will teach readers about the functionality of rain-harvesting barrels. At the begging of this assignment I knew very little about rain harvesting, but by the end I was well versed.
This position has also provided an excellent opportunity to network with other students and professionals in the environmental sector. I work for extension specialist and professor Dr. Brantley, and I learn so much about her work when I get to interact with her. Through my connection with her I have met professionals working at consulting firms that I am interested in and I've met students conducting important soil science research. Now whenever I want to apply for an internship or conduct research I have several people who I can talk to about my pursuits.
Summer Engineering Experience for Kids (SEEK)
Working for the National Society of Black Engineers Summer Engineering experience for kids has been one of the most fulfilling jobs I've had so far. I was tasked with coming up with daily lesson plans to teach elementary school children basic engineering concepts and to help the complete a weekly project. For example, on week one I would teach them about aerospace engineering and throughout the week they would work on building an aircraft out of paper that would compete in a competition. I was honored to serve as a role model and teacher to so many brilliant minority children who may have never seen a black female engineer before.
I greatly improved my teaching skills over the summer that I was in this role. from this I learned that teaching was a great way to solidify my own knowledge about certain things. In order to teach I had to thoroughly understand the topic I was explaining so that I could be prepared for any questions. when Interacting with and teaching young children, I had to practice patience and adaptability. Each age group was different so I had to learned how to make accommodations for whoever I was speaking with. The skills I improved on and gained from this experience are skills that I still use today.
Hazen and Sawyer/ City of Durham Water Department
I had the great opportunity to shadow an engineer at the City of Durham Water department. She began the day by taking me to a water treatment plant that they were making improvements on and telling me about the water treatment process. from there we went back to the office where I met some of her coworkers and got to sit in on a meeting about phase two of their plant construction. I saw blue prints of the plant and listened to everyone give their presentation about the part of the design they were responsible for. After this I went on more tours of Raleigh's dams and water treatment facilities. I enjoyed being out on the sites in nature and seeing all the hands on work that was being done.
The engineer I shadowed was kind enough to introduce me to the vice of the Raleigh, NC Hazen and Sawyers environmental consulting firm. This firm was working with the water department on the water treatment plant improvements, so I was able to witness the interactions between a consulting firm and municipal office. During my time there I was also shown the different roles of a consulting firm, the green infrastructure department was what I found most interesting. I was fascinated by the different green infrastructure practices they were working to implement into urban areas. The work their engineer did was exactly something I wanted to do, use engineering to make our cities healthier and more sustainable. This experience was enlightening for me as far as understanding what opportunity was out there for me as a Biosystems engineer.