Maxwell Hopper spent the summer with McCarthy Building Companies as a Project Engineer Intern with Self-Perform Civil on the Phoenix Sky Harbor T3N2 Concourse Project.
How did you get your internship
I acquired my internship through a networking connection I had in Boy Scouts. During my time in Scouts, I would always see the McCarthy logo on my Scoutmaster's trucks and wonder what it was. One day, while I was driving home from school for Thanksgiving, I was particularly stressed about finding an internship. I saw one of the McCarthy trucks and remembered that my Scoutmaster worked for them. I called him and asked about the intern process, and that conversation got the ball rolling. It was pretty cool that something I had been seeing for years through Scouts ended up leading me to my internship.
Why did you choose this internship?
I wanted to get my feet wet in the construction industry while also learning in an environment where I could develop a general understanding of how the industry works. My family is in construction, so I had already been exposed to the industry and wanted to delve into it for myself. I also researched McCarthy and learned about all of the amazing projects they work on, which made the opportunity even more interesting to me. I served as a project engineer intern, where I took on many of the duties of a project engineer while also learning about all of the other trades involved in a project. Construction management is an awesome industry, and I was glad to have the opportunity to be in it.
What kind of work did you do throughout your internship experience?
I served as a project engineer intern, where I assumed many of the duties of a project engineer while also getting to learn about the other trades involved in construction. A lot of my work involved requests for information documents (RFIs), submittals, change orders, data entry, construction finance, and other project engineering responsibilities. Since I was working in civil construction, I also got to see how the work I was contributing translated to the work in the field. I was able to learn from people in different areas of the project and get a better understanding of how all the different parts of construction fit together. This gave me a much broader understanding of construction management than I would have gotten by only focusing on one specific position or trade.
What new knowledge and experience did you gain during this internship?
I learned a lot about project engineering and the general knowledge needed to work in construction. I gained experience with construction finance, data entry, civil construction, RFIs, submittals, and change orders. I also learned a lot about professional communication and how important it is when working with different people on a construction project. Beyond the specific skills, I developed a much better understanding of how a construction project actually operates and how the different trades and people involved depend on one another. I came into the internship knowing relatively little about the day-to-day operations of construction management, and I feel like I now have a much stronger foundation to build on.
How was the internship related to your Applied Humanities degree?
My internship relates to the aspect of Applied Humanities that surrounds the human interaction side of doing business. Construction has a large degree of social dynamics because you are constantly working and communicating with different people. A project can involve owners, project managers, engineers, subcontractors, superintendents, and people working in the field; all of them have different responsibilities and their own perspectives. Being able to communicate professionally and understand how to work with different personalities is a major part of the construction process. My Applied Humanities experience helped me appreciate that the people side of construction is just as important as understanding the technical side.
What did you find most challenging about your internship? What did you learn from this challenge?
I think the hardest part was being able to put my ego behind me when I was learning something completely new. It is hard to know that you did poorly on something because you are new to it, especially when you want to do a good job. At the beginning, there were many things that I did not understand or did not do perfectly. Over time, I learned that being new at something is not a reason to be embarrassed about making mistakes. The best part is when you learn something to the point where you can finally do it confidently. That experience taught me to be more comfortable asking questions, learning from mistakes, and accepting that becoming good at something takes time.
How has your internship experience influenced your plans for your future?
My plans for the future now include working for McCarthy as an employee after receiving an offer at the end of the summer. I really enjoyed my time there and came to love the company, its culture and values, and the people I worked with. The benefits are also great, but most of all, I enjoyed the actual content of the work. This internship gave me a chance to see what working in construction management is really like rather than just imagining what the industry would be like. I now know that construction is an industry I want to continue pursuing, and I will be very happy to return to McCarthy after I graduate.