Animas High School Juniors embark on a 3 week Internship with a mentor to get a real world grasp on an career they might want to pursue. The process involves informational interviews and 90 hours of work and a project related to the field of work.
As a site manager intern, my duties are to communicate with contracting crews, negotiate equipment rentals, and take water quality samples from several points in the treatment center. My project was to help run the site while a shed to sore chemical feed for our lank tank was under construction. I created a map for our engineers and contractors to show what roads need to be watered to keep them in safe condition, and what fields need to be bladed in anticipation for surveyors.
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Reflection
Among the skills needed in an engineering role, the most important is probably visual learning. We have to use maps and charts on-site to track pipeline routes any set of instructions will have a written copy to ensure the security of work. Along with note-taking where every abnormal observation from stacks in piping to water puddles around tanks of liquid has to be written down for business safety and legal reason. From how much headboard is in the lake tanks, to the turbidity of our filtered water and the traffic on dirt roads at the site. The most important skill I learned during my internship was probably communication. Communication in all forms is essential for a smooth job site and a safe working environment from the emails sent to other contractors about trenching through their site, to written notes left in porta potties telling workers to wash their hands. With communication comes negotiation.
Most equipment on a site is rented from other businesses A front-end loader is $15 a day and a mobile office cost $16,000 a year. To be able to obtain a better deal over the phone is necessary. Lack of communication can lead to bad situations like the one where Penta kept opening fire hydrants around the property of the casino. This would cause a drop in the pressure of the fire lines. This pressure drop would activate the fire pumps inside the water treatment center. When these pumps are activated they will call the local police department. Normally it is a protocol to send an email out 1 day in advance to notify the entire construction site. So we sat down with every site supervisor and made a plan so that if they were to open another fire hydrant an email would have to be sent out.
Another Indecent was a faulty hand pump that had air buildup that nobody knew about. When I went to use the pump to pour Corrosive and toxic Sodium Hypo Chloride into a jug, the sudden release of air caused a large burst of the liquid to coat me and all the protective equipment I was wearing. At a towering 5’6” my roles were critically important in working in tight spaces. Our reverse Osmosis unit has valves and piping crammed into every corner and some are extremely difficult to access with the average adult. Small fingers made it easy to use data pads on pump units with gloves on, enter confined spaces, move around gangways quickly, and work in extremely hot environments. This internship has helped me plan how I want to go to college. I now know I enjoy labor work and can take this into account when going to college as this opens up opportunities for work and internships in labor-intense fields that require engineers.
Most equipment on a site is rented from other businesses A front-end loader is $15 a day and a mobile office cost $16,000 a year. To be able to obtain a better deal over the phone is necessary. Lack of communication can lead to bad situations like the one where Penta kept opening fire hydrants around the property of the casino. This would cause a drop in the pressure of the fire lines. This pressure drop would activate the fire pumps inside the water treatment center. When these pumps are activated they will call the local police department. Normally it is a protocol to send an email out 1 day in advance to notify the entire construction site. So we sat down with every site supervisor and made a plan so that if they were to open another fire hydrant an email would have to be sent out.
Another Indecent was a faulty hand pump that had air buildup that nobody knew about. When I went to use the pump to pour Corrosive and toxic Sodium Hypo Chloride into a jug, the sudden release of air caused a large burst of the liquid to coat me and all the protective equipment I was wearing. At a towering 5’6” my roles were critically important in working in tight spaces. Our reverse Osmosis unit has valves and piping crammed into every corner and some are extremely difficult to access with the average adult. Small fingers made it easy to use data pads on pump units with gloves on, enter confined spaces, move around gangways quickly, and work in extremely hot environments. This internship has helped me plan how I want to go to college. I now know I enjoy labor work and can take this into account when going to college as this opens up opportunities for work and internships in labor-intense fields that require engineers.