First-year students gain experience with guaranteed paid internships
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UIC is preparing students to be engineers with more than classroom work. It’s helping first-year and transfer students gain real-world skills, build experience, and expand their network as interns with the Guaranteed Paid Internship Program (GPIP). Students who meet program-specific criteria can apply for paid summer internships in research and IT.
After finishing their first year in the civil, materials, and environmental engineering program, students Isabel Garcia and Paulina Majewski were two of many students who took advantage of the GPIP opportunity and gained valuable experience this past summer.
Garcia researched transportation and traffic flow theory over the summer. She studied different articles and presented them to Clinical Associate Professor Farid Peiravian, who provided feedback about how they apply to civil engineering.
“It’s really nice to work with a professor and gain knowledge,” Garcia said. “I wanted to go into structural engineering, but I thought it was really good to branch out and look at different things. This is an interesting concept to me, and it’s good to see different branches of engineering.”
Going into the internship, she was a little scared because she didn’t know what was expected or what she would do. However, her fears were quickly put to rest by Peiravian’s patience.
“After meeting with the professor, he reassured me that I don’t have to be perfect and that he is there to teach me and guide me to learn more so I can grow,” she said.
In addition to the professor, Garcia worked closely with an electrical engineering student conducting research under Peiravian.
“We were always in communication about the articles we were researching, and the internship was blending the electrical and civil engineering aspects. We looked at different aspects but learned from one another,” she said.
Complete Streets Research
Majewski had the opportunity to work with Peiravian in the Active Transportation Lab, where she focused on complete streets, a transportation design approach where streets are planned, designed, and operated to enable safe, convenient, and comfortable travel and access for users of all ages and abilities.
“I learned a lot about what I want in a future job. I learned that I like transportation, and that could possibly be the direction in the civil engineering aspect I could go into. I learned a lot of new information about how complete streets go into active transportation and how all of that is important in the civil engineering environment,” Majewski said.
During the internship, she was charged with investigating a section of Taylor Street on the UIC campus. She evaluated what needed to be fixed or what aspects were good as she looked at raised crosswalks, accessible curb ramps, bike lanes, and much more.
“We learned a lot about sustainability and looked at the new computer science building. You can see how sustainability plays a major role. They have a lot of seating around it, incorporated a lot of plants, and stormwater management systems with permeable pavers around. It was interesting to see an example that they put in books. It shows that UIC cares about the environment,” she said.