IRISE Scholarship Winner Completes First Rotation
IRISE offers a scholarship opportunity for students in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering that provides an opportunity to gain experience and technical skills in the area of transportation infrastructure. Students must complete two six-month assignments with IRISE member organizations gaining experience in both the public and private sectors doing design, construction, rehabilitation and/or maintenance work.
The first recipient of the IRISE scholarship was Gabriel Salgado. Gabriel recently completed his first six-month assignment with the Allegheny County Department of Works. His report on his experience there can be found below.
Gabriel will do his second assignment in the summer of 2023 and our second scholarship winner will be selected in early 2023.
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Gabriel Salgado – Summer 2022 Internship Report
Working at Allegheny County Public Works was a great experience for my engineering career. This internship gave me the opportunity to see what tit was like to work in the public space and see how large plans are crafted.
Working at this internship, I was given the opportunity to go to sites and see what the job was like in the real world. I worked primarily with the roads department, and I frequently went to sites where a road was deteriorating, and we needed to evaluate how to approach the situation. I also was given the opportunity to walk down a road and evaluate what work needs to be done as part of the capital roads program the next year.
I learned a lot from this internship. Working in public works in Pittsburgh was especially valuable because we had to work with mountainous terrain and frequent rain. Figuring out how to best build roads cost-effectively is an engineering challenge that I was happy to learn about. Another opportunity I had in the internship was the rebuilding of the Roberto Clemente Bridge. I was given the plans for the reconstruction, and it was interesting to read the plans and then see it come to life when I visited the site. I also had the opportunity to see what a construction site was like on the inside, and I was given a proper tour of how the bridge is being constructed.
Similarly, a lot of the clerical work that I had to do was somewhat interesting. One big part of my job was organizing previous coring data. I later went out with my supervisor to collect new core data, which was a great learning experience. It was cool to see our sample and make a decision on what work needs to be done. I liked being able to see the whole decision-making process.
Overall, I had a lot of fun at this internship, and I learned a lot that I hope to use in the future in my engineering career.
