August is coming to a close, and so too is our 2021 summer internship program. Our 11 interns have gained necessary hands-on skills, learned important lessons, and contributed to the success of the firm. As they continue to forge their own path, we wish them every success and are confident that their time spent with us will prepare them for whatever may lie ahead!
Before moving to their next adventure, we talked with three of our interns to find out what is next for them. Lauren, Karen, and Bryce shared their plans as well as the lessons they’ve learned this summer that they will carry with them in the future.
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Q. What are your plans post-internship?
Karen P. – After my internship ends, I plan to return to my year-round internship with Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), where I am the Active Transportation intern. UCLA officially starts late September, so I’m also planning to relax and explore Los Angeles before I’m back in school-mode!
Lauren Z. – Post-Internship, I will be returning to classes at Cal Poly SLO and working on the Civil Engineering senior design capstone project. I am sure that many of the skills, knowledge, and lessons learned from this internship will come in handy when working on this capstone project this year.
Bryce G. – I am starting a concurrent Transportation Engineering PhD – Urban and Regional Planning Master of Arts program at the University of Florida this fall. I expect to finish the PhD in 2027 and hope to start working part time for Kittelson as soon as it is manageable with my research commitments.
Q. What have you learned this past summer that you will carry with you in your career?
Karen P. – Not only did I learn about transportation (for example, how to prepare a TIA report or how to assign crashes to intersections on ArcGIS), but the hybrid internship format also provided me opportunities to develop and strengthen my time management, organization, and communication skills. These are all skills that I will carry with me in my career.
Lauren Z. – Although I am still developing these skills, I have gotten more comfortable with predicting how long it will take me to do a task and the amount of project work I can take on at one time. I also became more familiar with how to use different capabilities of Microsoft Word, Excel, and other programs, such as pivot tables and date inputs that automatically update. Building on these management and technical skills will be key in the future as I continue into my career.
Bryce G. – This summer I learned the difficult lesson of addressing the consequences of over-committing myself. Moving forward, I will take with me sounder discretion on when to say no to some things and leave myself the availability to say yes to things that are most important to me.
Q. Did you find any new interests that you didn’t expect?
Karen P. – During my internship, I was involved with some travel demand forecasting and crash data analysis work, both of which I found interesting. I never had a chance to dive deep into these topics during graduate school, so being able to get hands-on experience was exciting and valuable to me. I also enjoyed being involved in the TIA process.
Lauren Z. – I learned about many new aspects of transportation, and gained a lot of new interests, but one overarching interest that I developed is how to better organize technical information and manage data. In project work, I realized that I enjoy considering and observing how to organize information and document processes so that I, the next document user, and/or the client can best interpret the data/technical information.
Bryce G. – I did not expect to be as interested as I am in modeling but have really found and developed a passion for it.
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Congratulations on the completion of your internship, Class of 2021! We can’t wait to see where your futures take you!
For more information about Kittelosn’s internship program, please click here.