Intern Programs 3

[KENAT]

Anyone have an intern program at their place which they are involved with or at least know a little about.

We have one at my place and although they do get some training and I like to think it’s a beneficial experience for them, to some extent they are basically cheap labor.

I’m in a high cost of living part of the States so the manpower (sorry if that’s sexist) they provide is significant.

How do your intern programs work, do they end up being cheap labor, do you get more out of it than you put in or are you taking advantage etc.

 

[epoisses]

We frequently have interns (students), mostly at the lab.

If you want to make this a success in the long term it has to be a win-win construction.

Advantages for the company:
- cheap labor
- easy access to knowledge/savoir-faire outside the company (support from the university/engineering school, library access)
- most importantly: the best assessment center you can imagine, a high percentage of interns is hired after they finish school.

Advantages for the intern:
- a great way to put your freshly gained knowledge in practice
- a great way to learn things in your field of study that you don't learn at university (usually the practical side of things)
- a great way to learn what a future working environment could look like, to form your opinion on where you would like to work

This also means that you have to spend a lot of time on getting the intern started and helping him to make the best of the few months time available. You can't just put him in an office thinking he will be productive.

 

[EOIT]

I am also giving my view point on student engineers that we have had at the plant.

I agree with epoisses on the advantages for both sides but from what I have seen here at my plant the last line is most important. There has to be a clear person in charge of what the intern is doing, how much is getting done, and what needs to be done after that.

It also helps to go on "field trips" as much as possible. We use our interns for cheap labor as well but we also try and make sure at least once a day or every other day we take them into the plant and go over real world applications of things they are learning in school. It seems to help with relieving some of the boredom and bring the classroom to life so to speak.

Regards,

EOIT

 

[monkeydog]

Interns are normally teamed with a an engineer that would be work well as a mentor. This does not always mean the most experienced or senior engineer. Sometimes someone with about 5 years experience, is close to their age, works out well. The interns can help in the projects (if not given busy work) and have access to most everything the mentor has access to (most experienced engineers, management, shop, resources, etc.)

 

[HgTX]

What epoisses said, every word. We have a great new employee who was a temporary hire last summer and is now going to school part-time for an engineering degree. We used an engineering FTE to hire this person as a tech, but we'll have a homegrown engineer in a few years.

Additional advantages for the mentor:
- Going out of my way to provide as educational an experience for the intern as possible is good for my education as well. I get to go on those field trips too!
- Having to explain stuff to them sharpens my own understanding.
- Helping them with their homework (but not too much help!) is a re-education in subjects I've allowed myself to forget.
- I have an underling to foist stuff off on that I now find routine and boring, but are part of the intern's learning experience.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[GrimesFrank]

I think another benefit to having an internship program is it allows you to see where the fat is in your company (whether management does anything about it is another issue)

I had my intern writing specifications (I review), doing field measurements, drafting technical letters, etc. This intern had me talk to his counterpart in process (I'm design). He was concerned that he wasn't learning anything. I asked him what he was doing; photocopying binders, keeping spreadsheets of unlabeled data, running info from the control room to the process dep't cubicles.

I was pissed, what a waste, when I questioned the engineers in that dep't it became evident they couldn't give him work as there wasn't enough to go around. So I asked the manager if I could have him....took him to my dep't and gave him work that he liked so much he went back to school and switched majors to align with what I was doing.

I did a good job that they are giving me a new hire (fresh from college) next month to mentor. I'm passing on just what I got which is what I thought this profession was about; half books / half tribal knowledge. Unfortunately talking to my colleagues (my age) they say their internships were; getting coffee, photocopying and playing solitaire.....for shame, they were behind the 8-ball when they got hired and they are continuing that cycle for the next generation.

Frank "Grimey" Grimes
You can only trust statistics 90% of the time.

 

[KENAT]

I sometimes have the opposite concern about some of our interns.

While they do their fair share of menial tasks, especially minor drawing changes, they usually get at least on significant design (or at least design documentation) task and often at least on task to create/revise a process/procedure/company standard.

Some of these tasks are pretty complex/difficult especially due to the culture in this place.

I'm impressed they all do as well as they do.

 

[brauno3]

To give a slightly different view, I am currently on my 4th Internship/co-op.

All 4 have been with different company's in different markets. I think each has had its advantages and dissadvantages.

Advantages
-Gain experience with knowlegeable engineers.
-Get a break from the classroom setting.
-Learn about real world situations and how to apply your education to them.
-Get experience with things you never learn about in the classroom.
-Learn about different resources/companys/suppliers which can benefit you in your daily tasks.
-Can see what different industries and departments are like
-Actually solving problems or designing parts which another engineer would be doing if you weren't there. This is great feeling cause it shows your useful to the company.

Disadvantages
-Can get stuck doing the same tasks day after day.
-If you don't receive much direction it can leave you feeling ineffective and frustrated.
-If there isn't enough work to go around your not going to be a whole lot of use.


Overall its been a huge help in giving me a better understanding of the type of work and company that I would like to work for after graduating. It will also make the transition from college to a full time job easier.

 

[plasgears]

Intern programs are a win-win situation. The student gains practical experience and earnings, the company benefits from fresh academic talent at low cost, and the mentor gains from new technologies brought out by the students. All medium size companies should entertain internships.

 

[KENAT]

Good timing plasgears, our new batch of interns just turned up.

We seem to have been given the duty of getting not only our 3 interns up to speed on our CAD tool but also those in one of the main business unit. Wish I'd known in advance...

One of the interns in my group thinks he's too good for my department. We're a Design Services group and most of the others in the group are designers/checkers not Engineers as such. While we do our fair share of menial drawing changes we also get involved in full on engineering projects and I've actually led a couple. I 'broke' the last intern that said something similar by giving him some stress analysis to do, I'll have to think up something similar for this one if the attitude continues. Any suggestions?

 

[brauno3]

Give him some menial boring task to do. Thats what I dislike most in my internships is the things like documentation and other various boring long tasks. It'd show him that he's "Not too good" for your department.

If he works hard and does a good job give him a bigger task to do from there.

I'd rather do the stress analysis than have to sit around for a whole day doing tedious long tasks. At least it would be something more interesting.

 

[KENAT]

Funny thing is the intern I gave the stress analysis to, I didn't think it was that difficult and didn't give it to him with the intent of making him suffer. In fact I didn't know he'd complained about not being challenged until after he'd been unable to complete it!

Maybe it was because he was electro mechanical and hadn't studied stress analysis that deeply, however, I'm no great stressman but with a quick look at some formula in books & online I managed to work it out.

 

[kchayfie]

Give him something complicated to do and when he asks for help, tell him you're too busy doing X, Y and Z menial tasks he's too good to do. Maybe then he'll realise that they need to be done by somebody and as the intern he's best placed to do them...

And if he doesn't figure it out send him on some commercial awareness training so he can learn exactly why your time is more valuable than his!

 

[plasgears]

A good job for an intern is iterative analysis for optimum conditions like min stress, min weight, etc.

I had access to a neat gear analysis program that led to optimum proportions of pinion and gear for min stress. [In gears, there is no such thing as standard gears.] Iterative analysis can lead to the right proportions of pinion thickness vs. gear thickness, for example, t pinion = .54 of pitch distance. Another variable is extended pinion addendum, for example, extended addendum = 1.2 orig addendum. They run more quiet, too.

Mentoring the intern with these finer details is instructive for everybody.

 

[enginerd05]

I had a horrible experience as an intern my first summer. Everyone was too busy to "babysit" me. By talking to people in my office I started assigning myself projects, asking if they would mind if I tagged along for the day, or just sit and watch them. The sit and watch them really worked for me because it was so awkward for them to literally have me just sit there and watch them that they would actually start explaining everything they were doing. By the end I would have additional little things to do to help them out.
By the end of summer and beginning of next internship I knew what had to be done on my part to get things going. In an effort not to let other interns go through same horrible experience we would teleconference amongst ourselves. I would basically outline for them different tasks or departments they could ask their supervisors to help with. It was a win-win situation. The interns got some experience and supervisors had productive interns. Last time I checked new interns were still using my outlines and more has been added.
My advice: Have interns just observe a few days. At end of maybe first week ask them what interested them and to make list of stuff they would like to do. Go over list with them, give your input and let 'em go. It shows how determined an intern can be having to find people to work with. I found that people liked the enthusiasm I showed when I asked if I could work with them. Occasionally check on intern just to make sure he hasn't gotten lost and ended up in the mail room for the whole summer. Have your intern share tasks and the like with other interns to give each other ideas.

 

[plasgears]

05,

As a relatively new engineer, I once asked my boss for additional guidance for my next task. He said "examine your navel," which means do some research, optimization, walk the plant, organize your notes, document your analyses, etc. I never asked that question again.