My Experience as a Summer Intern: Cultivating Confidence

For the past few months, I had the opportunity to be a mechanical intern for Summer Consultants at their Newark, DE, regional office. This internship has been extremely rewarding for me as a first step into the real-world of engineering.

Having no prior experience in AutoCAD or HVAC, my mentor Connor Lammey was extremely supportive from teaching me to perform the most basic commands in CAD to helping me understand the conceptual nature of the work we were doing. One of the more rewarding aspects of my experience was getting to work on a wide variety of projects. While learning the process of HVAC design, I was able to gain knowledge in plumbing, steam pipe design, and fire protection. Being able to work with all these systems allowed me to paint a full picture of how they are integrated with each other.

In addition to AutoCAD, I worked in CAEPIPE for steam piping design projects. As one of the newer softwares for the company, I had the opportunity to teach myself CAEPIPE with the support of my mentor. This experience instilled a sense of confidence in me as I was able to work through various challenges that I came across.

Finally, I greatly benefited from the company culture at Summer Consultants. Everyone at Summer was extremely welcoming and supportive and even as an intern I felt like a valuable member of the team. My coworkers were always happy to answer any questions I had, work related or not. I was able to learn about the process of becoming a professional engineer, as well as gaining college class advice for my upcoming school year.