<p>How did people fare in obtaining (paid) internships in civil engineering this summer? Was the federal stimulus of any help to you? Did some areas of the country offer more opportunity than others?</p>
<p>Our structural and civil engineering company, who typically hires scores of interns, hired no interns whatsoever this year. They’re still talking about laying people off and/or cutting our salaries. Business stinks this summer, so don’t take it too personally if you didn’t find anything…</p>
<p>I got a civil engineering internship one time even though I’m not a civil engineer. Try the DOT and Corps of Engineers. They don’t pay particularly well but they DO pay and it seemed like they were usually hard up for people. This was two summers ago though.</p>
<p>My company hired zero interns this summer. We are a construction firm that specializes in buildings (stimulus was directed towards infrastructure / heavy construction).</p>
<p>It’s actually my son who didn’t manage to find an internship, despite a diligent and thorough search in our area (Western MA), so we do take some comfort in hearing that private firms just weren’t hiring. MassHighway was offering only unpaid internships and he needs to make some money. So he’s working construction again where he worked the past four summers and just hoping there’s enough work that he’ll be employed all summer. He feels lucky to be working at all at this point.</p>
<p>That’s fantastic, that he got a job in construction. Even highly-experienced construction workers are having difficulty finding work. Also, most civil engineering companies and grad schools see construction experience as being particularly beneficial, since people with experience in the field don’t start out with that “not knowing how things are actually built” greenness that new engineering graduates typically have when they first find a job. When the market picks back up again, your son will have plenty of opportunities. Right now, though, the market is just terrible…</p>
<p>Thanks, aibarr, for your encouraging words. We hoped that with his solid experience in construction (so many college kids have never held a real life job, never mind learned truly practical skills and how to do hard physical labor!) and his 3.88 GPA would lead to a good internship this summer, but he is a casualty of the economy. Here’s hoping that his failure to get an internship after his sophomore year won’t be held against him and that you are right that his summers working construction ultimately will be looked on favorably.</p>
<p>He should have expanded his search to outside of the state. Some internships provide housing, if that was the concern. They were difficult to find this year, but he could have found something that paid if he’d have opened up geographically.</p>
<p>^^Perhaps paid internships for civil engineers are available in VA but definitely not anywhere in the southwest (AZ, NM, NV). There is just nothing here. Too many engineering firms have had to lay off valued staff members during the past year due to a lack of work, so they aren’t even offering UNPAID internships.</p>
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<p>Even in a good economy, there are always quite a few people who don’t have internships after sophomore year.</p>
<p>FrannyT, I second what aibarr said. It’s WONDERFUL for him to get construction experience. I wish I had gotten some! My husband worked as a rough carpenter for several years, and it’s really come in handy. I’m good at the math side, but weak in the construction detail area. It’s hard for me!</p>
<p>Thanks MaineLonghorn! He’s already had four summers (before this one) doing construction, so he was ready for something new, but it’s good to know this work will stand him in good stead. It’s funny, he went into engineering because he likes building/working with his hands (he was a major Lego kid) and then discovered he was good at math and physics, unlike many people who head into engineering primarily because they’re strong in math/physics. </p>
<p>Today he talked with a guy at a firm that does geo-thermal heating - design and installation - and it looks like he may work there for at least part of the summer as well. He’d be out in the field some, but also in the office doing some design work. Since his degree will be in civil and environmental engineering, this seems to be on point as well.</p>
<p>Oh, and thanks to Ken285 for reassuring me that my son’s career is not doomed because he didn’t have an internship after his sophomore year!</p>
<p>I’m going to be a Junior CE major in the Fall. I couldn’t find an internship either.</p>
<p>Even when the economy was <em>good</em>, I didn’t find an internship after my sophomore year, and I could only find one in my non-preferred subfield (see my upcoming book, Counting Cars in Parking Lots, and Other Thrilling Tales from a Traffic Engineering Intern), and I turned out pretty well. Went to a good grad school, landed a couple of gigs with some great and very reputable companies who do really cool work-- couldn’t have worked out any better than it has! Plenty of great things lie ahead for your son. No worries!</p>
<p>for structural, some of the big firms did not hire this year. Walter P. Moore, and Wiss Janey Elsner didn’t. I had a slightly difficult time, but still managed to get several interviews and an internship through personal connections, and career fairs/emails. Among the “big” structural firms, I know SGH, ARUP, SOM, LERA, Degenkolb, and MKA at various locations did hire interns from my school.</p>
<p>Blah2009, I think those personal connections are key; we had some of those and in better times I think they would have helped, but not this summer. It looks like you’re at Stanford, which would, I assume, have much better recruiting than my son’s school, which is not highly ranked as an engineering school. And it sounds like even there it was not so easy. So, all in all, I guess I’ll try not to fret too much for my son. </p>
<p>And thanks again, aibarr, for your upbeat attitude!</p>
<p>On the other hand, I was lucky (through my dad’s connections) to get a job with a structural firm in Austin starting my freshman year. I worked there during vacations, starting out as a receptionist, then moving on to drafting, babysitting the card-reading computer, and eventually doing engineering calculations. So I thought I was all set! But then the economy tanked, they couldn’t offer me a job, and I ended up moving 2,500 miles. I don’t think the “internship” helped me at all looking for a job. So I wouldn’t worry about it, one way or the other. Things seem to work out OK!</p>