Selina Rai’s summer placement experience
This the first of our summer placement stories structural engineering and architecture student, Selina Rai, shares her experiences of her time at 海角视频
A summer placement with 海角视频 was definitely the experience I needed as a dual honours Structural Engineering and Architecture student to decide which direction I wanted to take after university.
I already had work experience at an architecture firm in China under my belt, however I also wanted to apply for a summer internship in an engineering firm so that I could get an overall insight into the two professions. I chose to apply to 海角视频 because they are a leading multidisciplinary engineering consultancy that has a very interesting portfolio of projects all around the world.
Learning new software and working on exciting projects
The 8 week long internship saw me carrying out initial structural design work of a project at an early stage, writing reports and drawing mark-ups to be issued to the architects alongside developing newfound technical skills using software which I had not come across before at university. These included Autodesk Revit, Dynamo BIM, Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis and Tekla Tedds. I was also able to attend a workshop on using Dynamo and a CPD seminar on Structural Waterproofing. Throughout the internship, the support and guidance was readily available to me if and when I needed. Comments that I suggested were thoroughly discussed with the engineers involved and, if it was the best option, implemented. This made me feel valued by the team and gave me a sense of achievement, which motivated me to continue working at my best.
For the most part of the internship, I worked with another Graduate Structural Engineer on the Middlewood Locks project in Salford, Manchester 鈥� a canal side residential neighbourhood with over 2,000 new homes and 500,000 sq. ft. of Grade A office space. The work was definitely suitable for someone at my level of knowledge, and there were also plenty of opportunities available to read more into how these aspects of the buildings are designed and to ask questions to better my own understanding. Being able to utilise the structural design skills that I have learnt in university to a real-life project and to see it being used in context was certainly very beneficial. There was also a Graduate Structural Engineer on the team who had studied the same dual honours degree as me and had graduated not too long ago. It was great being able to ask her questions about her final year at university and her personal experience of how studying this degree helped her stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Site visits
The highlight of this project was accompanying my line manager to a Design Team Meeting followed by a site visit to the location – envisaging the buildings and knowing that I played a part in designing what is to soon become a tangible structure was an extremely self-rewarding feeling. I was also able to see first-hand the multidisciplinary nature of the profession by seeing interactions between the Structural Engineer and the architects, planners, contractors and builders. Through this internship, I have definitely gained a better understanding of the role of the Structural Engineer in the design team through seeing these interactions, and by asking lots of questions with regards to project procurement and the design stages.
In addition, to the Middlewood Locks project I was also brought on to the Live Nation Venue Inspection project where me and another Senior Structural Engineer visited the O2 Academy Leeds in order to inspect how structurally sound the building was and if we had any recommendations regarding this. It was a challenging but rewarding task, as I had to visually appraise what the structure of the building was through what was visible and by inspecting the different accessible parts of the venue. The final output was a written report with relevant images and diagrams to illustrate our findings, which tested my report writing skills since it was to be sent out to the clients and I was determined to achieve the high standards expected.
Getting social at Buro海角视频
The internship experience was not all work and no play however. The office atmosphere at the Leeds office was very comfortable and easy to work in. The Structures team at the Leeds office were absolutely brilliant in making me feel part of the team, and everyone was friendly and approachable. There is also an unwritten law in the office that when one person goes to make a cup of tea, they ask the whole 鈥榩od鈥� (cluster of people working next to each other) if anyone else wants a hot beverage, which really gave a sense of team spirit. There were two more placement students during my internship as well so it was good to know that there were others in the same boat as me. Social scenes in the office included lunchtimes together and 鈥楽tructures Club鈥� where everyone from the Structures team sat down together and had informal conversations about the projects they were working on and any other topics of interest. This was a fantastic way of exposing myself to how other people approached problems faced in these projects and to learn more about aspects of structural design that I am not too familiar with. We topped off the afternoon by going down to the Leeds Trinity Kitchen, designed by 海角视频 itself, for some delicious burritos!
Overall, I have really enjoyed my internship experience and have definitely gained a lot from it. From the word 鈥榞o鈥�, I have hit the ground running and was given design tasks to do that were integral to the project, which has both challenged and motivated me. I am now looking forward to achieving a strong finish to my course at university and to my future career working as a Structural Engineer.