Students who went to work in professional internships told us about their experiences.
For most college students, summer is a time to decompress after an arduous school year, spend time with family and friends, and perhaps even take a trip. But for many College of Engineering students, they seize summer as the opportunity to sharpen their skills and gain real-world application of their studies. Some of the students who went to work in professional internships told us about their experiences.
What have you been doing this summer?
Misha Adam Kustin, senior majoring in Mechanical Engineering
"I'm interning at Sustentare, a food production company in Brazil in the city of Curitiba. This is mostly a shadowing experience. My fellow intern (from Canada) and I follow our supervising engineer and assist in talking to clients, evaluating construction sites, and planning solutions to given engineering problems. Currently, a majority of our time is spent planning the renovation of a radiation treatment center. After the project is completed, the facility will be able to provide patients with chemotherapy treatment in a safer manner."
Erika Nicole D'Ippolito, senior majoring in Mechanical Engineering
"I spent my summer at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Ohio in the Air-Breathing Propulsion division. I worked on a fuel injector design for a supersonic free-jet combustor, a turbine engine water injection bibliography, and analysis of past water injection tests for an upcoming test."
Hira Majid, senior in Bioengineering
"I'm interning at the Center for Special Dentistry in New York City. I shadow Dr. Dorfman as well as the other staff in the office. Some of my responsibilities include:
Becoming familiar with dental equipment, procedures, software, etc. for all dental specialtiesLearning how to run x-rays and radiographs and how to analyze themHow to set up treatment rooms, sterilizing, etcLearning how to work with patients and other staff including lab technicians, hygienists, etc."
Katherine Bolten, sophomore majoring in Bioengineering
"I am in Limon, Nicaragua working for the Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (fiMRC). My role is a SIHF (Summer International Health Fellowship) intern. I shadow and assist fiMRC's obstetrician on home visits through the surrounding community to check in on and educate expectant mothers. I assist the nutritionist in the malnutrition check-ups in the community. Also, I help to host the biweekly diabetic meetings to educate diabetics and check their vitals and progress with their condition. At the clinic, the SIHF interns assist the OB/GYN and pediatrician by taking vitals for the appointments and work in the pharmacy to fill prescriptions. fiMRC's focus is primarily health education, to make a lasting improvement in the surrounding communities by educating people on how to properly stay healthy. The SIHF interns help to carry out that goal by each creating a project to improve upon, or start, any program at the fiMRC site where they see a need."
Victoria Suber, senior majoring in Civil Engineering
"I work for HYM Investment Group, a real estate company based in Boston. The focus of my role is to assist the team whose project I was assigned to with project management (managing deadlines, attending and keeping meeting notes with different companies, etc.), administrative needs such as delivering documents to outside firms, obtaining necessary signatures and preparing presentation materials, as well as managing legal information pertinent to project completion. The company as a whole has several simultaneous projects going on, so the context of my role within the company is to help lessen the load of my boss and team to help them more effectively manage their time. This is done by providing a fresh set of eyes and ears to make sure things aren't missed especially when reviewing contractual information."
How did you find out about the position?
Kustin - "I found out about the role from a third-party connection company, Intern Brazil."
Bolten - "To find this position, I did a lot of research to find a program with an emphasis on medicine and public health that fits the requirements of my stipend. When I found fiMRC, I knew that this was how I wanted to spend my summer.
D'Ipplolito - "My summer internship at NASA Glenn Research Center was sponsored by The Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium who previously sponsored my NASA START-UP research experience for three semesters at Temple. I could not have gotten this position without Dr. Helferty, who was my research advisor for the program and encouraged me to apply for this summer internship position."
How has this experience augmented your studies?
Kustin - "In my last internship during the previous summer I was in far more of a research setting. This summer was a more practical engineering experience, giving me a taste of what kind of field I would like to go into. In research there was a great amount of emphasis on the gritty details of what we were doing and the procedure you had to follow. This summer the goal is the end product, and the path is far more open. As a student who still isn't sure of exactly what I would like to do with my degree, this is giving me a different view into the world of engineering. Through this experience I hope to explore the different aspects of engineering in a foreign and developing country such as Brazil. This unique experience gave me an outlook which I hope to be able to be able to apply in any field in which I find myself."
D'Ippolito - "This role helped me develop a better understanding of how aeronautics research at NASA is conducted, primarily in turbofan engine compressible flow and combustion. After being in a research environment and enjoying it, I definitely want to go to graduate school after working in industry for a couple of years to further my education in either mechanical vibrations or fluid dynamics."
Majid - "Since my goal is to become a dentist, this internship provided an opportunity for me to get more exposure to the dental field. It has taught me skills that I would not have been able to learn from my undergrad courses."
Bolten - "Relative to my bioengineering and pre-med aspirations, fiMRC's program has allowed me to witness foreign healthcare first hand to compare it to the standards used in the United States. Additionally, my bioengineering classes at Temple emphasized the importance of first being able to find a 'need' within a situation or society in order to improve upon it. In the future, I hope to go to medical school to become an OB/GYN. fiMRC's Project Limón site in Nicaragua has an emphasis on prenatal care and gynecology that has allowed me to see what they do first-hand."
Suber - "This experience gave me a great insight into my field of study. Not only have I amassed copious amounts of information about the real estate industry, I have also been able to continue developing my research and communication skills. I was chosen for this project specifically because it is very civil engineering and construction-heavy. It integrated the knowledge I have gained from classes that I have taken so far as well as courses I'll be taking this upcoming year. I have learned that the real estate development/city planning industry is incredibly detailed and precise; there are crossovers between traffic engineering, intersection configuration, zoning laws, environmental requirements, utility work (electrical, water), architecture and financing. Every detail about a site is taken into account: from the number of traffic lanes and the width of a parking space, to the number of trees on a lot."
Give an example of an experience and what you have learned from it:
D'Ippolito - "After investing a lot of time on the empirical correlation for my fuel injector design and plotting the results I was very discouraged to realize that the fuel penetration was nowhere near the inlet centerline, which was one of the main objectives of this project. I was upset and embarrassed when I showed my results to my mentor. He explained how difficult it is to achieve the goal given the initial conditions and constraints, and that this will be a big challenge to overcome. It is often easy to get dejected in the engineering field when, for example, you don't do well on your Dynamic Systems exam after studying until 4 am, or your prototype robot design fails forcing you to spend hours debugging code or rewiring the whole design. But I have learned that is essentially the point of engineering — sometimes things work and everything goes great, and sometimes it doesn't and you have to start from scratch. It is just as important to learn why your design failed or what your mistakes were, and then take on the challenge, the next steps to improve it, and not get discouraged from your failure."
Majid - "This internship is pre-dental education program for college students interested in applying to dental school. It has given me an insider's view of how dental clinics are run in almost all aspects. It is also very hands-on in the sense that I get to learn how to use dental equipment. Very few dentists allow student interns to play around with materials and equipment so this is a great opportunity."
Bolten - "My first SIHF project's goal was to assess the progress of the prenatal program to determine whether or not it has made an impact on the community. To do so, I gathered statistics on pregnancies from before and after fiMRC's establishment to compare the two sample populations. However, it became apparent to me that Nicaraguan file-keeping is disastrous or nonexistent. I had to sort through a tornado of note cards and archives only to discover that roughly 50% of the files didn't exist. Needless to say, I was rather frustrated with the Nicaraguan healthcare system. After coming up with a methodical plan of action and three weeks of tirelessly sifting through files, I was finally able to collect enough to do a statistical significance test. Fortunately, several categories of the data fell outside the 95% confidence interval, indicating that the data was statistically significant which is pretty awesome! From that experience, I gained a greater appreciation for the organization of developed healthcare systems, and also found that a plan of action and a little determination can go a long way."
Suber - "During my internship, I was very proud when I was able to guide the start of a meeting with a consultant and client by myself when my boss was running late. I was already familiar with the project and agenda, so I used the information about the progression of the project to minimize time wasted while waiting. What I learned from this experience is that I am more knowledgeable that I thought and that it is not as intimidating as I thought. I just have to speak up and communicate, and the consultants are willing to listen."