INTERNSHIP BLOG
Final Reflection
My STEMworks Summer Internship exposed me to many new skills and hands on learning experiences. I was able to learn a lot about Civil Engineering and construction, fields that I hadn’t known much about beforehand. Through professional development webinars, I was able to improve my communication, interpersonal, and professional skills. I also got the chance to take my learning into my own hands and figure things out myself without relying on others to help me along, which is exactly what I’d expect from a real employee. This internship really felt like a real job experience. I am so thankful for getting the chance to work with Goodfellow and STEMworks this past summer.
Professional development was a huge part of this internship for me. I learned how to communicate effectively with my mentors, through email and text, in order to cater to both their and my busy schedules. I was taking a class at UHMC that summer, so I had to go into the office later in the day for the first couple weeks. We also had to coordinate a lot for our trips out into the field, especially the trip we took to Lanai. Communication was key for the success of this internship. I also learned a lot through the STEMworks program’s Professional Development Webinars, which were required for all the interns. In those webinars, we learned about resume building, presentation skills, college and workforce prep, and even entrepreneurship advice. We talked with college counselors from the mainland, STEM professionals and entrepreneurs that were originally from Hawaii, former STEMworks students who were attending mainland universities, and people that specialize in professional development. We were given such a large body of knowledge and it made me feel more prepared for life outside of high school.
Aside from that, I also learned quite a bit about Civil Engineering, construction, and surveying. We went on lots of field trips to look at construction sites and practice surveying. By the end of the internship, my fellow interns and I were very comfortable with setting up and breaking down the GPS units and tripods required for surveying. We knew how to level them, measure their distance from the earth, and analyze the data back at the office. We even learned some Civil Engineering math from our mentor. Most importantly, I learned how to pick up new skills fast. I was at a disadvantage because I missed the introduction to the software we were using, Autocad Civil 3d.
I had a few broad goals for my summer internship. First, I wanted to have a good quality, complete project by the end of the experience. Many internships in the program have the interns work on a specific project, which is what I was expecting when I got accepted into the program. However, at Goodfellow, much of our experience was hands on in the field or working on elevating ramps in the office, without any specific encompassing “project”. However, I considered this goal achieved because I finished all the work I was given. The other interns and I split up the ramp elevation assignment by blueprint pages and I finished all of the ramp models from my pages. I finished the Civil Engineering “homework” assignment, trying to calculate the distance on the circumference of the earth that one could set up gps units for surveying without running into issues with the curvature of the earth.
My second goal was to deliver a professional, memorable presentation at the internship program showcase. I apparently said something very quotable during the presentation and was taken aside after the showcase for a small “interview” to get it on camera. I’d say that fulfilled my goal of having a memorable presentation. My final goal was one I had to abandon. I came up with this goal during the internship, as opposed to the others. I had wanted to finish the Civil Engineering Technician Learning Path on Lynda.com, but turned out to be too heavy of a workload. It would have looked good on my LinkedIn, but would have taken 40 hours. I wasn’t planning on pursuing Civil Engineering as a career, so I decided that I really didn’t need to complete it just to put it on my profile and resume.
We were given access to Lynda.com as part of this internship program, and this resource was vital to the success of my assignments. I was finishing up my Calculus II summer class at UHMC for the first couple weeks of the internship; I had class in the morning and work in the afternoon. I was at UHMC when the other interns were first introduced to Autocad Civil 3d, so I had to learn a lot of things on my own very fast. I used videos on Lynda.com to pick up the skills and get to know the software. I would also stay a little later than the other interns so that I could have more time with the software. Lynda.com made a huge impact on my life. I’ve been using the platform ever since then to learn all sorts of stuff - from animation to professional development to web development skills.
The most memorable moments of this internship were definitely the surveying trip on Lanai and getting to drive a bulldozer at the Prince Hotel construction site. I also loved going to intern luncheon at Cafe O’Lei, as it was really cool to meet the other interns and hear about the various projects they were working on around the island with Goodfellow. I enjoyed talking to my mentors about how they got into construction and receiving sage advice about college and beyond. I became close friends with my fellow interns and my mentors, which made all of the cool experiences even better.
If I could do this internship over again, I would have changed very little. Perhaps the one thing I would have changed was the day when I was five minutes late to work and the other interns and my mentor had already left for the construction site. I later found out that the other interns got to fly a drone around at the site, and I missed it! After that, I made sure to show up on time every day, because I didn’t want to miss any other cool opportunities. So, here’s the first piece of advice I would give to future interns: Get to work on time every day - otherwise you might miss fun opportunities.
I would also tell future interns to do what I did with trying things themselves before asking their mentors for help. It’s very rewarding to figure out problems by themselves, and the internet was such a great resource for finding solutions painlessly. However, my next piece of advice would be to avoid being afraid of asking the mentor for help when necessary, as they are there to help! My final piece of advice is to enjoy the experience, say yes to every cool opportunity, and to really get the most of it. You learn so much as an intern and it’s an experience you will never forget.
Internship Week 6
This week felt really short, possibly because it was our last week. I started working on more ramps, just so that we could finish up all of the ones on the plans. I also took some time to learn more about Civil 3d using Lynda.com. We got to run some errands at various construction sites, one of which I hadn't been to before. Most of this week was dedicated to finishing up ramps. I felt pretty confident in the ramps that I had finished, and my mentor also said they looked good. Our mentor also taught us a little about drafting and maps on Friday. Overall, this was such a wonderful, fascinating experience and I'm so thankful for this opportunity.
On the 28, I had my internship showcase for the STEMworks program. It was super neat to learn about other interns’ projects and how their internships went. When it came to Jett and my presentation, I was extremely nervous, however I felt better that I had prepared ahead of time. During my presentation, I mentioned something apparently very quotable about the program, so I was pulled aside afterwards for a short ‘interview’ to get it on camera. Walking around the tech park after the showcase, I felt a sense of accomplishment and pride about my internship work. I was so thankful for the professional development webinars, which taught me lots of tips about being professional in the workplace, making nice resumes, etc. I felt that I really put my best effort into this internship, and it was wonderful to have that recognized by my mentors and peers.
Internship Week 5
This week was very exciting. My fellow interns and I worked on our ramps and visited various construction sites in Makena. Jett and I also each got to drive a bulldozer at a Makena site (the old Prince hotel construction site). Bulldozers are weird! As opposed to a car, you push down on the ‘gas’ pedal to slow down the machine or stop it. The reason for this is because the operators are often working for long periods at a time, moving rock and gravel with the bulldozers. It would become very tedious to have to press down on the pedal the entire time, so the default when the bulldozer is out of park is “full speed ahead”. “Full speed” isn’t particularly fast, however I was still very nervous trying to work the equipment at first. I’ve only driven a car once, but I can now say that I’ve driven a bulldozer! :)
We got a chance to spend more time with Mr. MacFarlane and learned about his project engineering on the Makena site. We got to go to a few awesome meetings with a lot of the GBI staff. There was one where we learned about relationships with the community in Hawaii, and the other one was a foremen's meeting. Engineering services also had a lunch meeting this week where we got to eat pizza and learn more about how various projects are going. On Friday, I had to leave a little early because I started to catch a bit of a cold.
July 17
Today was a busy day at the office. First, some interns from Women In Technology came to the office to take photographs and interview us (Jett, Kevin, and me) for the STEMworks Internship Program. We got to stage lots of funny pictures, holding equipment we barely use just to look cool. Kevin, Jett, and I could barely stop ourselves from laughing every time we tried to pose as if we are doing something and “explaining” utter nonsense while pointing at blueprints.
Then, Jett, Ethan, and I continued working on ramps in Autocad Civil 3d, it’s quite the iterative process. We were done with most of our ramps at this point, but we had lots of tweaks to make in terms of grade and elevation at different points. The drawings we were tracing weren’t precise, which has made “guessing” where the lines should go quite trying.
Kevin also helped us post-process the data from the Lanai trip. We got to see all of the points and had to make sure the gps data checked out. We learned about the various way gps data is processed to be used by construction companies and surveyors to get an accurate representation of the site and topography. Overall, we learned a lot today and it was super exciting to see our hard work pay off.
Internship Week 4
This was a very busy and exciting week! On Monday, we had an Intern Lunch at Cafe O Lei and worked on some models in Autocad Civil 3d. On Tuesday, in addition to working on models, we visited a construction site in Makena. We also prepared for our trip to Lanai on Friday. On Thursday, we continued preparing for our trip. On Friday, we started our adventure to Lanai at 5:15 AM. We drove to Lahaina from Kihei and caught the 6:45 AM ferry to Lanai. From there, we did our static survey on the Lanai site using GPS units (similar to what we did a couple weeks ago), and while we were waiting for the data to be collected we went to grab lunch in Lanai City. Finally, we caught the 2:00 ferry back to Lahaina, drove from Lahaina back to Kihei, and I waited at the office for my dad to pick me up.
I had already discussed our Lanai trip before, so in this blog post I would like to talk more about the intern lunch. Goodfellow has their own internship program, mostly for college aged students. Jett, Ethan, and I are all high school interns; Jett and I specifically are the STEMworks interns. It was an awesome experience to get to know the other interns and to hear their stories. We discussed what got us interested in STEM, what we are majoring in (or hoping to major in ) and the various construction projects we’ve been involved in as part of our internships. I also got to know all of the mentors better and hear their stories about how they ended up at Goodfellow. What really struck me was how they all said that Goodfellow was their family; many of them had been working for Goodfellow for over ten years. We all filled up a giant table at Cafe O Lei, and yet we were still sitting shoulder to shoulder.
Lanai
Lanai was an amazing experience. I left the house at 5:15 with one of my mentors and, after meeting up at the Goodfellow office, we took Kevin’s truck to Lahaina for the 6:45 ferry. Todd, Kevin, and I met Ethan there, he drove there instead of meeting us in Kihei (he lives in Kula, so it would be faster). The morning ferry ride to Lanai was fairly calm, though I started to get a little sick as we edged into the dock. From there we took the Goodfellow company truck to our surveying site. I remember the twisty, empty road curving up through the mountain. The side of the mountain on Lanai was fairly uninhabited, most of the houses and businesses existed at the bottom of the mountain or up at the top. I also remember the red dirt and the tall, dark green trees.
Before going to the surveying site, we stopped by a storage site to pick up some equipment. Then we spent the morning surveying the future Lanai Aquaponics site. This required setting up the tripods, securing the GPS units on top, leveling both the tripod and GPS, measuring the height above the ground, and taking pictures of the measuring tape up against the setup to ensure the accuracy of our measurements. While we were waiting for the GPS units to collect data, we grabbed lunch in Lanai City. We went to a little cafe that was a favorite of Kevin’s, the Blue Ginger Cafe. I grabbed a coffee of the Lanai newspaper while I was there as a souvenir.
After lunch, we went back to the Aquaponics site to pick up all our equipment. Just like our setup routine, we drove around in the company truck across the site to pack up everything. While we were driving back down to the dock to catch the 2:00 ferry, I started to feel a little carsick. At certain points along the curves, I felt my stomach turn. However, most of the ride was interesting and scenic. We had to drag all of our equipment onto the ferry, taking multiple trips. During the ferry ride back, I started to fall asleep right as we left the dock. However, a few minutes into the ride, we went over a giant wave that jolted me awake. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach, and looked behind me at Todd, who could tell I was in trouble with my motion sickness. He motioned me to go to the back of the boat, but as I was walking, another large wave hit and I fell over onto someone. Talk about embarrassing… I spent the rest of the trip hanging my head over the back of the boat, trying not to throw up. According to Todd, throwing up on the boat was against the “official internship rules”. Jokes aside, I was relieved that I kept my lunch down throughout the entire trip, even at the very end when a sailboat accidentally took our place at the dock and we had to wait out in the waves for them to leave. Lanai was one heck of an adventure.
Internship Week 3
This week was fairly short because I had a half day on Monday and Tuesday was the Fourth of July.As usual, I didn't go to work on Wednesday. On Monday, I mostly worked in Autocad Civil 3D, elevating ramps and getting to know the software better. On Thursday, my mentor, fellow interns, and I all went to Kaanapali to survey one of the construction sites using GPS units. When we got back to the office, we started looking at some of the data we collected, even though it couldn't be post processed until the next morning. Finally, on Friday, I came to work a little later and missed when everyone visited Lahaina (I emailed my mentor). So, I worked on elevating ramps for that part of the morning. Then, when everyone got back, we worked more in Autocad Civil 3D, went to a pizza party at the main office, had an engineering department meeting, and I helped set up one of the company computers.
One of the highlights of this week was getting to attend the biweekly Engineering Services Meeting. All of the people within the fairly small Engineering Services department met to discuss the progress of the projects they’re designing models for. It was fascinating to hear about all of the various construction projects happening on Maui, as well as the struggles the contractors were facing. For example, at one project they accidentally placed some object like a parking meter or an electrical box (I can’t remember anymore) too far towards the middle of the sidewalk. The meeting lasted a lot longer than I thought it would; I had been in the meeting for at least two hours and I had to leave after that because my dad was there to pick me up.
Internship Week 2
I couldn't come in during Tuesday and Wednesday due to finals week, and I had my Calculus final in the morning on Thursday. This week, my fellow interns and I made more progress with Autocad Civil 3d, learned how to use laser equipment to determine distance and elevation, and learned some math using midordinates to solve real world problems. We were given a midordinate 'homework problem' where we had to find the distance on the circumference of the earth that one could set up gps units for surveying without running into issues with the curvature of the earth. Our error had to be less that 0.1 feet.
I have been getting better at using Autocad Civil 3d. We were provided with Lynda.com as a resource for our internship program and I have been utilizing it to better understand the software. Lynda.com is basically a resource that provides tutorials and courses in various skills; it’s very popular for learning new softwares. The ramps still frustrate me, as none of the lines seem to add up well. With some of the ramps I was building, the distance between the ‘real’ lines and the ones I drew were well over our error threshold, which I believe is 0.1 ft.
Internship Week 1
I didn't clock in very many hours this week due to scheduling constraints with my summer college class (my class met on Tuesday and Thursday, and I had the webinar on Wednesday). My class ends next week and I hope to make up the hours I've lost due to it. On the days I was at work this week, we visited a construction site, got started with Autocad Civil 3d, went to a blessing ceremony for a project in Wailea, and learned a lot from our mentor about surveying and civil engineering.
After visiting a construction site the first day, I had to take the next two days off for school. When I showed up at the office on Wednesday, everyone had already gotten started with Autocad Civil 3d and I had some catching up to do. I had to wait a couple hours for Civil 3d to download and install on my computer. From there, my mentor showed me and my fellow mentors the basics of how to start outlining ramps in Civil 3d. There’s definitely a learning curve to it, as the linework I was tracing was somewhat sloppy to begin with. I found that one has to exercise a certain level of decision making when it comes to arcs that don’t fit perfectly to the predetermined curves.
Mr. Clarke taught us a lot about surveying this week, from showing us the GPS systems that surveyors use to explaining a little bit of the math to us. He showed us a neat calculator that would help us a lot as future engineers and talked about some of his experiences as both a civil engineer and a surveyor. We were introduced to lot of people in the engineering services team as well as other people from different teams that worked in the same office.
Finally, we wrapped up the week with a blessing ceremony for a project in Wailea. We got to experience the blessing itself and eat lots of amazing food. They had Kalua pork, poi, rice, and many other local favorites that were cooked at home. The pig itself had been buried and cooked by employees at Goodfellow, I believe at the construction site itself. While we were eating after the ceremony, I got a chance to talk to my mentor Todd and my fellow interns more. Ethan, one of the interns, gave Jett (other intern) and I a ride to the ceremony as our mentor Kevin (Mr. Clarke) was unable to attend. We definitely got to know each other better when we were talking in the car and listening to music. Within the first week, I already feel that we will be good friends and coworkers.
Internship Day 0
Today, I officially began my internship with Goodfellow Bros.
I showed up at the office a little before 8:00 AM and met my mentor, Mr. Clarke. From there, my fellow interns and I all went to orientation, where we learned a little about the company's history and a lot about field safety. Orientation was at least two or three hours, since we watched a couple 30 minute safety videos, went through a slideshow, had a discussion around the table, and had some slight technical difficulties.
From there, the other high school interns and I, three of us total, went back to our mentor's office and learned more about the type of engineering projects he works on. Mr. Clarke explained what some of the symbols and terminology meant. He's a civil engineer that works on models and other things for the company, but he used to be a surveyor for a long time so he also taught us quite a bit about how surveying works. We got to see some of the extremely accurate GPS units and got a quick lesson on two different types of surveying using GPS. He also told us that, in the past, surveyors used to mainly rely on lasers rather than GPS. Lasers are still used to some extent today, but GPS trilateration can be very accurate.
Mr. Clarke also brought out the plans for several projects on the island and had us look through them to get a feel for what we'll be working on during our internship. We didn't have the login information for the computers we will be using at the office, so we weren't able to try the CAD software yet. However, getting the chance to look through the plans and learning from Mr. Clarke about what some of the symbols meant will probably help us once we are all set up with our computers.
After lunch, Mr. Clarke had to deliver some equipment to one of the construction sites and he let all of us interns come along. We were all issued hard hats, reflective vests, protective glasses, and gloves. We had a tour of the construction site near the Kahului Airport. It was very fascinating and cool to watch all of the workers digging trenches and operating massive machines. The one insight that struck me the most was how all of the workers acted like a family. They would laugh, talk with each other about meeting up over the weekend, and shaka at each other while driving by in the construction vehicles. They were also very knowledgable and answered all my questions about their work, projects, and equipment.
Overall, it was an awesome first day and I'm super excited for the rest of my internship. I'm surrounded by so many people that are very knowledgable about engineering and construction and I'm very eager to learn a lot from them about their work.