• 
  • Clients
  • Locations
    Anchorage, Baltimore, Bend, Boise, Brisbane, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Portland, Reston, Tucson
• 
  • Development Services
    Development Services Example Projects
  • Public Works
    Public Works Example Projects
  • Research & Education
    Research & Education Example Projects
  • Transportation Planning
    Transportation Planning Example Projects, Access Management Example Projects
  • Transit
    Transit Example Projects
• 
  • Roundabouts
  • Transportation Links
  • KAI Short Courses
    Schedule, Advanced Highway Capacity, At-Grade Intersection Design, Basic Highway Capacity, Roundabouts Course, Functional Geometric Design, Traffic Signal Design, Traffic Signal Timing, Transit Capacity and Transit Quality of Service
  • HiCAP v2
• 
  • Finding Your Career
  • Career Opportunities
    Careers at KAI, How do we hire?, What do we do?, Current Employment Opportunities, Express Interest
  • Internship Program
    Our Commitment, Our Expectations, Program Overview, FAQ's, Express Interest in an Internship
  • University Visits
    View the schedule
• 

What We Expect of Interns

KAI looks for students that are interested in and willing to learn about transportation planning and engineering. We do not expect students to have chosen transportation planning and engineering as their career focus. Rather, we expect students to be open minded and willing to experience the breadth of transportation planning and engineering from the consulting perspective. We encourage students to consider opportunities to work in any one of our offices.

Previous work experience or relevant coursework in transportation is not required. However, it is expected that students have a fundamental understanding of mathematics, problem solving, and writing.

In addition, we look for students who are:

1. Curious about and interested in transportation
2. Committed and motivated to learn
3. Responsible
4. Dependable
5. Personable
6. Articulate

Each intern at KAI is expected to maintain an up-to-date work log to identify the work they have performed and key items learned. The work log allows us to track the progress of the intern and provides the intern with a thorough documentation of their work experience providing an opportunity for further reflection in the future. In some cases, students may be able to submit their work log and gain Independent Study Credits from their college or university.

We provide feedback to the intern regarding their progress and performance throughout the internship. Additionally, the mentor, internship coordinator, and other staff that work with the intern provide close-out review comments.

There are four key areas we evaluate:

1. Overall Performance and Professionalism
2. Learning and Applying Technical Skills
3. Taking Advantage of Outside Learning Opportunities
4. Providing Feedback

Overall Performance and Professionalism

Interns are expected to conduct themselves in the same professional manner as our full-time employees. This includes:

1. Dressing appropriately and arriving on time each day,
2. Attending scheduled meetings and events,
3. Turning in accurate and timely weekly timesheets,
4. Meeting expectations on projects,
5. Meeting deadlines for projects and other tasks, and
6. Communicating with Project Managers and others.

Learning and Applying Technical Skills

Technical skills that will be applied specifically on the projects interns are involved with will be highlighted and interns will be expected to gain the level of knowledge defined in the Internship Framework Plan.

Interns are expected to demonstrate this knowledge to their mentor as well as one or more senior members of the firm. The intern will have a minimum of two progress reviews with their mentor and a senior staff member during the course of the internship. The goal is for the intern to have grasped the key concepts outlined in the Framework Plan by the end of their internship.

Taking Advantage of Outside Learning Opportunities

We encourage all of our interns to expand their knowledge by attending meetings, reading technical journals, participating in firm-wide training and activities, and participating in professional organizations. These activities may occur outside of the normal 40-hour work week and in addition to the intern's project responsibilities. The level-of-effort for average, above-average, and exceptional efforts are described below.

1. Average level of effort: An intern who does not attend or participate in any learning activities outside of their project work.
2. Above average level of effort: An intern who participates in technical sessions and training sessions hosted within the office.
3. Exceptional level of effort: A highly-motivated intern who attends public and professional organization meetings, demonstrates outside reading, participates in firm activities, and seek opportunities outside of the KAI office environment.

Providing Feedback

It is as important for the intern to provide feedback to us as it is for us to provide feedback to the intern. This demonstrates communication and critical thinking skills of the intern and also allows our staff to adjust elements of the internship program to provide interns with the best educational experience possible. We expect our interns to communicate with their mentor, their office manager, their project managers, and fellow interns continually. We want interns to discuss issues such as scheduling, workload, variety of work, educational benefits, and any other issues the intern feels would result in an increased level of benefit from the internship.