<p>I'm starting to look at possible internships/co-ops down the road and some of the more interesting ones have been with the state department of transportation. What do you think would be involved in taking an internship with the state as opposed to a private company? Would it be more of transportation than structural work? Basically the question is, what can I expect if I take an internship with the state DOT since they don't describe what the job is?</p>
<p>Do they say what division you’d be working with? A state DOT has many different jobs so it’s hard to guess. You could be doing traffic engineering, highway design, transportation engineering, construction inspection, etc.</p>
<p>In New York, most of the actual design gets outsourced to private firms. The state essentially acts as the owner and the inspection agency for the construction taking place. If I’m not mistaken, the traffic engineering aspect stays in-house though.</p>
<p>The state is more of a regulator and deals out contracts. The private firms actually do more of the work.</p>