Last Day

My last day on the job was the day I had looked most forward too of the entire week. For the first time, I was going to be able to go out in the field and do measurements like an actual engineer. When I got to the site, David took out a couple of instruments out of his car and placed them on the ground. One was a long pole that measured up to 25 feet and the other was a device that zoomed in on the pole at a certain point so it could get the elevation of the sidewalk. Then I would go around to different points and we would do the same thing over and over again so we would have many points to work with when doing measurements on slope and other such things. After doing the calculations, David and I discovered that the slope of the sidewalk was in accordance with city regulations, which meant a lot less work for the team. After lunch I came back and did some more filing, which was a little saddening, but I knew it was a part of the job so I got to work. When I finally finished it was that time to move on and so I said goodbye to everyone at the firm and said thank you for the experience that will help me in the future. That was my senior project for the week.

Day Three

Today started with an unfortunate phone call from my mentor telling me the site I was supposed to go to with one of his workers was cancelled because the worker called in sick. Even though I was disappointed, the day turned out to be a very busy and interesting day in the office. When I walked in, I was met with more filing, but it took only a little bit of time because I had done most of the work load the day before. Then I met up with David, who does a lot of work making the plats and getting them finalized for Mr. Schneeberg. David first showed me the ropes of being a civil engineer. When dealing with a piece of property, there are certain rules that you must abide by in each city when working on a site. After showing me a few of the city pages, David showed me zoning rules, flood plain rules, and how you have to deal with neighbors when working on a certain area. After all of this, David started me out by scaling a certain plat where part of the sidewalk on the site had to much slope to it. I scaled the plat by drawing cross lines perpendicular to each other so I tomorrow, David and I could measure the points that I put down on the plat. Next I did some highlighting on another plot for him so he could put the information into the CAD. To end the day, David showed me how to use the CAD and then had me do a basic design of one of his newer projects. Even though it took some time to learn, I was able to make it work out in the end and fortunately the design looked exactly like the design on the plat. Hopefully tomorrow will be just as eventful as today!

Day Two

Since I had done a lot of paperwork and filing the first day, Mr. Schneeberg wanted to make sure I got an idea of what a plat looks like and what the actual job site looks like. So when I arrived at work, Mr. Schneeberg had me go with one of the people who surveys the land before construction. His name was Jason and after a few minutes of sitting, we hopped in his car and headed to the jobs sites. The first site was a church in Carrolton that had just been finished with the construction, but the landscape was not done so we could see all the plumbing lines and water lines that were on the plats. I was also able to see all the changes in gradient from where the plat acknowledged the changes. The second site was a laundromat in Downtown Dallas and even though it was done too, Jason wanted to show me how the drainage system worked at this site. On the plat, little lines divided where water would drain if it landed in a certain area, which confused me at first because it seemed like guess work. But when we got out there, I saw that each section had a certain low point where water would flow which made it much easier to understand. The last site in Plano was under construction and we couldn't really see anything, but he did show me how the owner had to construct new parking which they had worked on. After lunch the day slowed down and I just did a bunch of filing, but at the end of the day Mr. Schneeberg told me I would be working in the field tomorrow, which has me giddy with excitement.

First Day

Today I met up with my mentor Robert Schneeberg and he introduced me to all the people in the office. After meeting everyone, Mr. Scneeberg gave me some background information on what his engineering firm does on a day to day basis. First he showed me a bunch of long pieces of paper with blueprints of the site that they were working on. These prints are called plats and Mr. Schneeberg sends in these plats with information on drainage and other such things to the city and the city review all the specs to make sure everything is okay. When everything is good they sign it and send it back meaning that all the stuff they plan to do is okay by city standards. Mr. Schneeberg then let me sit with one of his colleagues who was working on a program CAD. CAD or computer-aided design is the system that they use to draw all of the specs on. After organizing all the information, they print it on to the large sized paper so it can be sent to the city. After a nice lunch, I came back and worked on organizing a stack of plats that the company had been working on. Even though the job was very laboring, I realized how much work there was to be done in the office from organizing, to working on the computer, to making calls to people who are interested in getting you to work on a new piece of land. Overall I thought today was a very productive day and hopefully it will only get better from here on out.