Summertime in Enid means that several local entities welcome college- aged interns hoping to gain real life work experience.
Businesses in Enid and the City of Enid itself, hire interns — through a program offered by Enid Regional Development Alliance — during the summer and provide an education that can not be achieved solely in the classroom.
“I think honestly (my greatest difficulty has been) adjusting to how many times you have to go back to the drawing board on the design,” said Darius Baker, a University of Oklahoma senior studying mechanical engineering interning at Oxbow Calcining.
“In school you’re taught to just get it right the first time, get it done the first time, you’re done. This is much more tedious process. You come up with the design or something doesn’t necessarily meet what the specifications looks like, so alright, well we scrap that and go to the next drawing board.”
This unique educational experience is the reason Enid native Mollie Burchel wanted to start an internship after having completed only one year of college. Burchel is a mechanical engineering major at Oklahoma State University who is interning this summer at Envirotech.
“In engineering, your first two years are mainly math and science, and I really wanted to know if I like the actual work of an engineer,” Burchel said. “So I really wanted an internship to see what type of work I would be doing on a daily basis. I’ve been trying to decide if I want to do civil engineering or mechanical engineering and the work I do with Envirotech is more civil, so it’s giving me a better visualize as to what working in civil would look like compared to mechanical.” Interns who are not local to Enid are provided free housing by Northern Oklahoma College.
Interns are given an apartment that includes a small kitchen.
“I think that’s a pretty important part of my stay here, you know. Being able to have free housing, I’m able to afford and do more things in Enid … maybe put that money away,” said Joseph Hoang, a graduate student at OU’s Oklahoma City campus.
Some interns are taking steps outside of their major through their internship. “(My) goal is to be a project manager … this is definitely a different experience than what a lot of interns in my field are doing this summer,” said Gage Williams, a fourth-year student at OSU and intern at Envirotech. “But this actually does relate to my field because as a project manager you’ll get compaction numbers that you have to meet, and a lot of project managers don’t understand what goes into making that. I’m getting to see the behind the scenes of the early processes of construction.”
“My major is computer science. This position is not completely related to computer science, it’s a combination of management and computer science,” said Abhilash Minukuri, a senior at OSU and intern for the city of Enid. “I’ve learned great new thing(s) for my future.”
The Enid News & Eagle also hires summer interns. This piece was written by intern Hope King, a journalism senior at OU.
Picture: Enid Summer Interns, supervisors, Mayor Pankonin, Natalie Rapp, Lisa Powell, and Trent Misak
7/16/22