In June, Civiltech hosted four high school students for a 30-hour summer internship. This year was our third year hosting this event as we continue our mission to inspire future engineers. The program is designed to give students an overview of the variety of engineering roles and adjacent professions that work together to make Civiltech a success. We enjoy encouraging high school-aged students to consider engineering for their college studies and future career.
“I got to experience so many different departments and see what people do in their day-to-day lives. As a workplace, I felt like everyone [at Civiltech] was so kind and supportive of not only me as a potential engineer but also each other.”
This year’s participating students included Elyse Kuntz from Classical Consortium Academy in Barrington, Patryk Bonchonko from Rolling Meadows High School, Vishnu Adiga from John Hersey High School, and Raphael Delgado from Buffalo Grove High School. All expressed an interest in pursuing engineering in college and the quotes included herein are from the participants feedback describing their experience
“It was a comprehensive overview of Civil Engineering … and exposed me to many different paths and roles which go into a Civil Engineering firm.”
Over the course of the four days, the students were given presentations by Civiltech staff from across all departments. They learned about the variety of Transportation Engineering services offered at Civiltech from Phase I Environmental and Design Studies to Construction Engineering. Phase II Design Services sessions included learning about Structural Engineering, Traffic Signal Engineering, Lighting Design, and performing quality calculations in CAD. 
“I really enjoyed the presentation on Complete Streets. It made me realize just how difficult it is to design a road that is accessible for everyone, especially when there is limited space.”
Sessions exposed the students to related design services offered at Civiltech including Landscape Architecture, Nature-based Solutions, Transportation Planning, Urban Design and Traffic, and Water Resources. The program also featured presentations by professionals from auxiliary departments such as Marketing, Graphic Design, and IT Applications and Systems illustrating the range of professions that work together to deliver our services to our clients.
“Nature-based Solutions was very interesting to me since it combined engineering with the environment and created solutions for environmental issues.”
The students enjoyed many hands-on activities over the course of the week including operating drones and working with CAD systems. They participated in Interchanges and learned about Civiltech’s Knowledge Management program. Interchanges are presentations given by staff allowing them to share a topic of expertise or interest with other staff. Also, the interns spent a full day visiting project sites and learning about Construction Engineering.
“The field day was super interesting. I particularly enjoyed using the engineering equipment and touring the upcoming new park in Schaumburg.”
The interns had the opportunity to engage with Civiltech employees from all levels of experience. One lunch hour was spent with our current college-age summer interns, and another lunch was with former interns who are now full-time staff. The last day of the program included lunch with the entire Civiltech team.
“I enjoyed the conversations at lunch. I felt like I was able to experience what working at Civiltech is really like – the relationships, the topics discussed, and how people treat each other.”
The program concluded with a Career Readiness session. The students learned about resume writing best practices and about networking using LinkedIn. The session touched on the advantages of joining industry organizations and how to utilize resources available through their schools.
Civiltech considers the program a success when students leave with a new understanding and appreciation of Civil and Transportation Engineering and with a desire to pursue engineering in college. This summer, in a measure of the program’s success, one of the D214 interns from 2024 joined Civiltech as a college-age summer intern.