This summer I had the pleasure of working for Reilly Associates, a civil engineering consulting firm, in my hometown– the one and only Scranton, Pennsylvania. Reilly Associates are the City Engineers for the City of Scranton which makes them very involved with the area’s infrastructure engineering: mainly roads, bridges, waterways, etc. Being that I want to start my career in infrastructure design, Reilly seemed a great place to gain mentorship and experience right from the engineers designing and developing around my hometown.
As an engineering intern, my duties ranged but generally consisted of supporting engineering associates with their projects and learning alongside them as we tackled different design challenges and considerations. This summer I was especially involved with the remodeling of the pipe networks on a 150 year old mental hospital near Scranton.
My weekly activities on this site consisted of reading through engineering plan sets with my coworker, measuring and remeasuring pipes and drains, and coming up with new ways to model very old water systems in these buildings. It really showed me how much the nitty gritty designs make or break a project: if one pipe is off by a few inches, then the rest of the pipes are, then the whole building is!– it could be a mess if you aren’t deliberate and precise with your design choices.
After my great experience at Reilly, I wrapped up my summer in Sydney, Australia for my Writing 340 class here at USC. It was the Fall Lead Program through Viterbi, where we do the first two weeks of our class before the semester starts abroad. The purpose of the program is to gain a global perspective and to see the similarities and differences of engineering around the globe, specifically for us in Australia.
We got to go on many tours and dive into the history of the construction of skyscrapers, iconic landmarks, such as the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and the architectural makeup of the city itself coming from its roots as a British convict colony. And best of all we got to see lots of Australian wildlife including many kangaroos and koalas!
