The UCLA Civil and Environmental Engineering department strives to educate engineering leaders who can work in a multi-disciplinary environment to anticipate and address evolving challenges. Over the summer many UCLA Civil & Environmental Engineering students participate in internships to apply the knowledge they learned in the classroom to real world experiences. Below we highlight two students and their summer internship experiences


Cayla WhitesideCaylaWhiteside

Public Works and Engineering Department of the City of Monterey

Cayla Whiteside, a second year UCLA Civil and Environmental Engineering student, interned during Summer 2015 for the Public Works and Engineering Department of the City of Monterey. Cayla surveyed and recorded the locations of damaged utility boxes in several Monterey neighborhoods using a Trimble Geo7x and antenna pole. She then recorded the data points on Excel spreadsheets and created an interactive map of all the damaged utility boxes using ArcGIS software. Cayla presented the survey results at a Utility Company meeting using PowerPoint and handed out informational pamphlets to company leaders regarding any damaged boxes that were their responsibility to repair. She later created a book report of her survey results, including maps of each neighborhood.

This year, Cayla looks forward to taking her first few upper-division engineering courses for Civil Engineering at UCLA. Cayla will also serve as the Conference Coordinator for ASCE at UCLA.

 


Suraj PatelSurajPatel

Transbay Transit Center

Suraj Patel, a third year UCLA Civil and Environmental Engineering student, interned during Summer 2015 for the Transbay Transit Center. The Transbay Transit Center is intended to be the Grand Central Station of the West and is essentially an unprecedented guarantee of establishing High Speed Rail in the Bay Area. Suraj notes, “It was a complete honor to be a part of the groundbreaking work that will revolutionize the state.” Suraj was in charge of managing and coordinating the communications between the design team and the multiple subcontractors as well as present on site logistics and planning.

This year, Suraj looks forward to becoming a stronger and more skilled civil engineer by taking major-related courses and participating in student groups such as ASCE at UCLA, Seismic Design, CalGeo and ITE.