We reached out to the high school interns over the summer, and many wrote back to tell us in their own words about their experiences. Here are some of the stories from the South Bay and Peninsula.
Violet Sinnarkar and Logan Chinn from San Jose both worked at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) for the summer. Data collection was a large part of their work. “I never realized how statistics-driven the organization must be,” Sinnarkar explained, “until I was given a spreadsheet to fix! They’re enormous, and it can be a little overwhelming.” In addition to their concrete tasks, they also gained a sense of office culture in general. “Working 9-5 in a cubicle is often portrayed negatively in the media, but I found the work environment to be generally quite positive,” said Sinnarkar. “My first day on the job was during an ice cream social, and all the full-time employees were really welcoming, offering words of advice and reflections on their time at VTA.”
Further north, Andre O’Quinn gained “a wealth of information and advice on how to succeed in the engineering field” during his time interning at the city of Daly City. “On top of being able to listen to experienced professionals detail on their careers, I was able to experience the environment of public works for myself, whether through simply scanning documents, writing a contract for a partnering agency, or helping to survey an intersection,” he said. “In this internship, I was able to perform real work that affects real people. I was able to not only learn new things myself, but also help our department and indirectly, the city residents.” Regarding his future, O’Quinn asserts: “With the knowledge I’ve gained during this internship about public works, I’m not only interested in specifically pursuing transportation engineering after high school, but possibly even general civil engineering. I’ve learned the importance of keeping a wide scope of options instead of limiting myself to a single discipline.”
In San Francisco, Owen Mahoney and Madeline H. O’Donnell were hard at work improving the city all summer. Mahoney interned for the Presidio Trust, and O’Donnell for the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA). Their mentors reported on the two student workers with glowing reviews. O’Donnell’s mentor Ed Sum, engineering manager for TJPA, told us that he hoped to impart his knowledge about “different aspects of transportation and engineering, communication and its importance in a project environment; exposure to planning, design, construction, finance, community and public relations; and problem solving” to his intern. Mahoney’s mentor Emily Beaulac, transportation operations specialist at the Presidio Trust, expounded further on her role as mentor in the program: “I hope that by exposing Owen to a wide variety of transportation projects, he will be able to use that information as he identifies what he wants to study in the future. I also hope that he recognizes how even his smallest projects and tasks are a part of the Presidio’s overarching goal to become a more sustainable and livable park. He has made a difference this summer, and I hope he is still interested in pursuing a career in sustainable transportation to continue making positive impacts on the community,” she said.
