And what are you doing this summer?

Wanted to keep this post up top. I added a poll to the left for anyone who has a strong opinion of where I should be working this summer. Also I got a phone call last night pass midnight from Parsons in Sacramento. The manager for one of their construction projects called me because he said that their HR person couldn't get through to me and he really wanted to know if I'm interested. Construction management sounds really cool and again, they have an interesting project. I told him that I've gotten other offers and I'll get back to him if I'm interested. It's such a shame since he must've really liked what he saw on my resume to call me instead of waiting for the HR people to try again.

=====original post. 3/5/08=======

Choices, choices. Earlier this week, I got an email from the Happold Trust saying congratulations, I have been selected to receive a scholarship along with a summer placement (internship) in one of their offices. Since Buro Happold is one of the biggest names in structural engineering, this is great. But... I'm not sure what I want to do. If you want to help out, keep reading.

So placement with Buro Happold will be 8 weeks long and mine will take place in Bath. The scholarship is £2,100. The monthly rent in Bath seems to be around £300 so it's enough to live on. They haven't told me which group I will be working with yet but it will most likely be a structures group. I might also get some experience in geotech because they do foundations as well. Bath itself is a World Heritage Site, seems like a nice place to live, very close to Wales, which I haven't been. There are many advantages to this internship actually. I would get to travel around Britain during the weekends, which I haven't done yet. Yalu will definitely come visit since she'll be in Paris. And since my internship is only 8 weeks, I will have time to do some serious traveling (with Yalu) at the end of the summer. And I just realized that working in England means that I can start my internship right after my projects are done (i.e. start the 2nd week of June), maybe come back to Cambridge for May Balls, and have more time at the end of the summer to travel. The only reservations I have about this company is that the female and male ratio is not great. When I went in for the interview, I actually had to look for the females because there were not so many. Also, people dress nicer than in the US. In most US engineering places, people just wear a shirt, jeans, and black shoes. There the guys had ties and nicer shirts. They do have some offices in the US, namely New York City and Los Angeles. But the LA offices is really small. No big plants like in Berlin. No one really had much personal pictures around their workspaces either, I'm starting to wonder if that's just an American thing.

So after hearing back from these people, I emailed MISTI China and asked about the China situation (China Communications Construction Company CCCC). Appearantly, it looks like they've already decided to take me as an intern but failed see the need to tell me. I think this is another one of those cultural differences business. See, American companies tell you as soon as they have decided so that they can grab you. These Chinese places don't see this as a priority. They don't realize that they've got to compete with other places for me. I think if I didn't ask, the whole thing would've ended up like last year where I got an email in June asking "So when are you going to arrive in Shanghai?" Okay, now that I've finished ranting about this place, let me tell you what they do. They're one of the biggest construction companies in China, working on mostly projects in ports. I would be working in a design office. Where? I still have no clue. Not sure if they're actually going to pay me for this internship although MISTI China will reimburse me for the flight, I'm sure. So I've been wanting to do an internship in China for like 2 years now. The reasons are that I want to improve my spoken Mandarin, understand the culture (since going there with parents and living by oneself is totally different), visit family, maybe seek out old friends, and of course, travel. Oh, and the food. Asian food here is questionable. Also, besides this, MISTI China has no civil engineering contacts. I would be helping future Course 1 students to have the chance to work in China for a summer.

And of course, there are other places that I am really interested in but haven't heard back from yet. There's Parsons Brinckerhoff. I did a phone interview with their office in San Francisco with their geotechnical group. They guys I interviewed with seems really cool. And they have cool projects. There's 2 major projects going on and they said there'll be plenty of work to do. Working for them would mean that I would get excellent experience in geotechnical engineering, which is something that I can't say for the above 2 places. I also interviewed with Gilbane Construction in Boston. An internship with them would mean really good experience in the construction field. Definitely on-site versus hanging out in an office like all of these other places. And there's potentially something in Iceland through Course 1 with Iceland's biggest structural engineering firm. Other than the opportunity to travel around Iceland, there would be other MIT students working there as well. And I would still get to travel Europe with Yalu if I work in Iceland. Not so realistic if I work in China.

Okay, there it is. One really long entry about my summer plans so far. Comments are welcomed.