Junior civil engineering major Patrick Reeves has always had an interest in math and building things, but he knew that to make himself a competitive job candidate, building his resume would be just as important as getting his diploma. That’s why Reeves has been gaining hands-on experience in engineering jobs since his freshman year.
Reeves has helped renovate a high school cafeteria and supervised street paving for North Platte’s Engineering Department. He recently got an internship at Midwest Steel Works, a local steel fabricator for projects throughout Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Iowa.
“Companies come to Midwest Steel Works when they have a project needing steel. We design anything from steel columns for steel buildings, to steel stairways and frames for doorways. How we design it is based on the plans that the architect has given us. Our job is to make sure everything is structurally sound,” Reeves said.
Reeves’ internship is giving him a chance to see all of the work that goes into designing something long before construction begins. He has even reviewed the blueprints for the new Pinnacle Bank Arena.
“My friends and I have all been really excited about the new arena,” Reeves says. “So it’s kind of cool to be able to say I helped build it in a way. I hope to find a job in structural engineering after I graduate, so this job has been a really great opportunity for me.”
On a typical workday, Reeves runs prints, which means printing off the structural drawings for a project to give to the bidder who will check the drawings and calculate a cost for them. Then he will do anything that is handed to him ranging from making drawings to shuffling papers into revised plans. Recently, he has even begun to design some small projects himself.
“I’ve worked on projects in the past where I was actually working with my hands, helping build things and lay concrete. Then I had the chance to do some oversight of jobs, and now I am actually designing what I was building and seeing be built,” Reeves says. “It’s great because I feel like by the time I graduate, I will have a lot of experience in this field.”
Many students dismiss the idea of doing internships during the school year because of scheduling, but many employers work around their interns’ course schedules.
“The people at Midwest Steel Works are awesome. It’s a really laidback environment, and they work around my school schedule really well,” Reeves says. “I will go into work for a couple hours in the morning, then go to class and then go back to work if I need to and if I have a test or something I need to study for they are really understanding about me taking the day off. It’s just a good place to work.”
Reeves found out about his internship at Midwest Steel Works from an ad in the Daily Nebraskan, but there are other ways to find jobs that will supplement your major. Check out Husker Hire Link ([embed] http://www.unl.edu/careers/hhl) Check out http://www.unl.edu/careers/jobsearch/resume.shtml for tips on how to write a great resume and be sure to bring it along to the next campus career fair.