TOWSON, Md. - Elizabethtown College men's lacrosse attacker, Thomas Palen, describes his volunteer experience in the Landmark Conference Student of the Week series.
Describe your overall internship/volunteer or experience?
This past summer, I had the opportunity to work as an engineering intern with the environmental remediation group within AECOM. This internship offered me the opportunity to work in the field all across New Jersey and New York City. I was sent to multiple sites to help with soil sampling/testing, water sampling/testing, and the cleaning of multiple water and wastewater treatment facilities. Also, I worked with a cohort of interns on helping AECOM develop a more efficient cross-business line pipeline tool.
What have you learned from your experience?
Throughout the summer, I was taught multiple engineering techniques that will be vital for my future career. I believe the biggest takeaway from the internship was how important it is to communicate with all types of people. I would get on-site and have to talk to project managers, experienced engineers, and contractors. I had to be able to convey with confidence my ideas and my outlook on how to tackle certain problems encountered.
How will this internship help you in your career moving forward?
AECOM is a very distinguished engineering firm that has offices all across the globe with 87,000+ employees. Having recommendations from my employers there may lead to multiple different career paths. I am studying both civil and environmental engineering, this internship showed me in no uncertain terms how much work there is to be done to clean up the world around us. This internship will be a big stepping stone for my career and has helped me realize how much I want to lean into the Environmental field to help face the many problems in our world's infrastructure.
What kind of networking have you done at your internship/volunteering?
I was able to work with a group of interns throughout the summer. We have been able to stay in contact throughout this semester and we will hopefully be able to stay in contact when everyone decides where they want to work in the future. Also, throughout the summer my manager set up multiple calls with employees throughout the company to go over with me their path and some of the work they have been doing. I got the chance to work in the field with many of these people and these mentors have become good friends that will be able to give me advice in the future.
Do you have a favorite experience or story? If so, what was it?
From getting the chance to work on the Jamaica wastewater treatment facility in Queens New York City to a simple soil sampling procedure in Dayton, NJ, I was able to gain so much experience from this internship. However, by far my favorite experience came from the first day of my internship. On the introductory call to the internship, they had all the interns introduce themselves and tell everyone what school they came from. All of them came from well-known engineering schools such as Princeton, Cornell, Rutgers, Gettysburg, and many more. I felt great pride in being able to represent the little unknown school of Elizabethtown College. It was an honor to represent my school and I believe that I showed everyone that worked with me what an Etown engineering student is capable of. As an athlete, the competitive edge from that moment was one to outwork the other interns from the "big-time schools" and to put the Etown engineering department on the map with a massive company like AECOM.
