Entering college, I knew that I was choosing this life path for myself in order to reach my goal of getting a great job that I am passionate about and enjoy doing. Knowing this, I saw co-op and internships as a crucial aspect of my college career. By taking an internship, one is able to experience different aspects of various jobs that one may be interested in. By taking a co-op, one is able to get their foot in the door with a company and work for them, while getting paid, and experiencing what the job and the company is like. And if all goes right, I could receive a job offer from them at the end of college. The ability to experience what a career option is like rather than strictly taking classes on said career path is very important to me. The ability to see what a job is actually like and if I would enjoy it or not is crucial to the goal I have set for myself. Knowing how important this is for myself, I will plan on getting a co-op, and possibly an internship as well, at some point in my college career to achieve this goal. Ideally, I plan on finding a co-op opportunity for myself and plan to start rotations in the spring of my second year. These goals and plans are why I decided to focus this project on getting my foot in the door with companies and initiate the process of finding these co-op and internship opportunities for myself.
Throughout my first year of college, I was always thinking about how I would go about achieving this goal I had set for myself, but the planning began for myself this spring. Returning to school for second semester, I had learned about a conference that was hosted by the Theme Park Engineering Group, which is the main club that I have been in all year. I did not know much about this conference, but learned that it would help me become more familiar with the themed entertainment industry and would help me begin to network with professionals in the industry, which would possibly open the doors to opportunities in this field that I always hoped that I would have. Knowing this, I planned on and attended this weekend-long conference during the weekend of January 17-19. After this conference, I had learned about a spring career fair for engineering students specifically, and it was being held the Wednesday of the first week in February, so I planned on attending and attended this event as well. After these two events, I created an appointment with Engineering Career Services to talk about my goal of getting a co-op, and they helped point me to the various resources available to help with this goal.
As of now, I look back on the results of my project and believe that I have created a great foundation for becoming successful in obtaining a co-op or internship in the near future. Attending the SITE conference back in January helped me become much more familiar with the themed entertainment industry and allowed me to network with professionals in the industry. However, I also learned how difficult it is to obtain a position in this industry, considering how small the industry is in comparison to the demand for positions in this industry. The main takeaway from this conference is to keep pursuing these opportunities when they arise, but that I should not get discouraged if I am not selected for such opportunities. I learned that gaining experience as a Civil Engineer in general working for a different company that I enjoy will most likely be what happens, but always looking for these opportunities to work for, say, Disney Imagineering, could become a big possibility as long as I stay persistent in pursuing this goal. In addition to attending the SITE conference, I also obtained some major takeaways from attending the Engineering Career Expo. By getting to know about some of these local, as well as faraway companies that hire Civil Engineers, I was able to introduce myself to them and get to know about the company and opportunities they have. Being a freshman and participating in activities such as these is very beneficial considering not too many other freshman attend events like these. These events also help me gain experience in networking and communicating effectively with other professionals. By attending this career fair, I was able come away with newfound knowledge and experiences that will help me achieve my goal of getting a co-op or internship next spring.
In the coming months, I will continue to network with professionals via email and the sources that I was provided by Engineering Career Services by attending the appointment I had with them. I will be able to easily reach out to these professionals by referring to the business cards I received from them at the networking event at the SITE conference and the career fair. Beginning next semester, I will plan on attending the Engineering Career Expo being held in the fall. Instead of going to the fair in order to gain experience and knowledge, I will be going with the intent of obtaining a co-op or internship, as long as I have not already received an opportunity by one of the companies I had been talking to over the summer.