This summer I am doing my optional Co-op in the Field Services department of Allan A. Myers. Allan Myers is a heavy construction company that is based out of Worcester, PA, which is about a 10 minute commute for me. This company works on bridges, roads, site preparation and water and waste-water treatment plants in the Mid-Atlantic region. Everyone that I have talked to from this company really loves working here, and with slogans such as “Better, Faster, Safe” and “Home Safe Tonight” you can really tell that they are looking out for the best for all of their employees.

Field Services is basically a combination of a small tools and concrete forms shop, so therefore we service all of the guys out on the job-sites. I price different tools for both our shop so we can repair things and for the job-sites so they have all of the needed equipment under their budget. Also, I will be working on inventory of all of the items we have in our shop and out in the field, which means visiting job-sites instead of sitting in the office all of the time. Even though I have not had a chance to go on a visit yet, I have the opportunity to watch the mechanic fix parts and see all of the items that are needed to create the projects we do on a daily basis.

Another interesting thing is that Field Services is in charge of the cows here on our property. This used to be a farm before the Myers family created their hauling company, which eventually became the company it is today. I have watched them during feeding and its definitely a different experience than school in Boston. It is also a big difference from every day life. Even though I only live about 10 minutes away, there are no farms near me so it definitely feels like a different world.

I am really excited to continue working here over the summer and learn more about the construction industry and this company!

This past weekend was Easter and my parents and brother were able to come up from Pennsylvania in order to visit me! This was the first opportunity my brother has had to come visit since he is still in high school, so that gave me an excuse to take him to all of my favorite places to eat and shop. My family and I went to the north end for dinner and Mike’s pastries, which they all loved!

Saturday my boyfriend joined us on a tour of historic Boston, where we went to see the U. S. S. Constitution and the Bunker Hill Monument. There some of us climbed the 294 steps to the top, and others had to stop forty steps before because it goes on for forever! It is definitely a long trip up. The view of the city was amazing and definitely worth it, even though the top was a little crowded.

 It was interesting to take my family to see the U. S. S. Constitution because it was the theme for last years concrete canoe, and such a big part of history. The builder was also from Philadelphia, which gave us a little pride and history from my home town.  After that we went to the Seaport to look around the harbor and eat amazing seafood at Legal Harborside. After that my parents dropped my brother and me off at Newbury Street to go shopping and we walked all the way to the Commons since it was so nice out. He loved the park and view, and we did a little bit of shopping which is always nice. After we were able to hang out and spend some quality time together, which i miss dearly since I live so far away.

It was an amazing weekend with my family that seemed to end way to soon. Even though I will be home in a month I miss them already, and when I am home I will miss Boston so it was nice to have the best of both worlds.

My birthday was this past week, along with many of my friends, so we had a huge dinner on Saturday night to celebrate! It is so exciting to be able to celebrate with so many people and know that all of those people are there for you no matter what, along with having an amazing home-cooked meal of shepards pie, chicken alfredo, empenadas, and much more food! It was a really amazing time spent with friends, and very good deserts for us to enjoy, even though we were all stuffed from everything else! And everyone that was celebrating their birthday had their own cake!

I have met so many amazing people at Wentworth that I cannot imagine life without now. They are always there for me no matter what, love hanging out and just having a good time! Whether it is going to the north end to grab cupcakes or spending a long weekend in Cape Cod, I know I have made friends here that I will have for life, and that is an amazing feeling!

This semester has really been flying by. Between getting ready to pour the concrete for the canoe and building the mold to planning events for Society of Women Engineers and Phi Sigma Pi I have been very busy around campus. And along with that, classes are definitely in full swing and I have been getting a lot of work and tests. So it is a crazy schedule but doable.

Even though classes are a lot of work, it is pretty cool to reflect back to the beginning of the semester and realize what you have learned within two months. Since I am taking differential equations, the basis of what we learned in the beginning of the semester is now used in almost every problem and comes almost naturally now, while I used to struggle with it in the beginning of the semester. It is also neat to see your general knowledge of any coursework progress. Through my Civil Engineering Materials and Statics and Mechanics II classes I have learned a lot about steel and other materials that are used in construction and what stresses are on certain structures, along with the capacity that they can hold, so that when I go on co-op or get a job out of college I can actually work on building things with steel, or concrete and other materials, that will not fail. That is definitely a scary feeling to design that kind of stuff, but I am learning the tools now to handle those situations. And I have had a chance to put steel and other metals to ultimate stress and failure, which is really cool because you get to see pieces of metal break right in front of you and analyze the breakage (though it always makes a loud noise as it breaks which scares everyone!)

So even though there is a lot to do, especially since it is midterms week, it is really neat to look back at the last semester and realize how you have grown in just two short months.  I definitely enjoy knowing why buildings are able to be supported by their framework and what kind of materials are used in order to make it a safe building, something many of my friends will never know.

Classes and extracurriculars are back in full swing, so naturally I am happy along with very busy. It is almost surreal that my class is almost halfway to graduation and with optional coop only three months away the real world sure is creeping up on us! It is really a great opportunity to be able to work out in the field and put the skills we learn in class to actual use. There are so many different benefits to doing coop, such as networking and building up your resume for after graduation, that make the graduates of Wentworth so valuable when it is time to be hired. I got a Co-op for this summer at a heavy construction company back home that I am so excited to start, and anxious to see a part of what I could be doing for the rest of my career. This program is one of the reasons that I was so drawn to attending Wentworth, and just to start planning and accepting something for the summer is surreal. Now to get the ball rolling I have to meet with one of the awesome Career Services Staff Members and find out how to achieve the best results from a co-op and make sure my resume is the best it can be!

Two weekends ago I attended the Society of Women Engineer’s conference, WE ’12, in Houston Texas. 8 female engineers, along with our faculty advisor, flew down on a Wednesday night to settle into our hotel and prepare for a three-day conference. There, we had the opportunity to attend seminars with both professionals and other students from all around the country. It was an amazing experience to be able to get to be in an environment where men are the minority in regards to engineering. There was also the opportunity to attend a career fair where huge household names, such as Disney or Bechtel, that were there to discuss future Co-op opportunities and even interviewed some of the older girls! It was very exciting to be able to attend a conference like that and work on skills that will be important in my professional future. We were funded by Wentworth and our SWE chapter to fly down and stay down there, and all of my teachers were very understanding for the two days that I missed. It was an amazing experience and I cannot wait to go again next year. I met so many amazing women and gained valuable skills that I never thought possible!

Today was my first day I have ever had all classes cancelled while in college and it is definitely strange! This storm is very intense and the wind is blowing so hard that the cover of the S in the MassArt sign blew off already, and the worst of the storm has not even hit yet! With this being the biggest storm I have ever seen in Boston to date it is a little scary, but definitely a different feel than when storms hit in the suburbs at home.

Even though I am kinda upset class was cancelled (yes, cancelled classes do kinda suck in college, though I did get a test pushed back that i may actually be happy about) this was a good opportunity to spend some time with my boyfriend, and when he decided to go out and see the storm (before it got really bad) it gave me an opportunity to catch up with my suitemates and organizing that needed to be done in my room! And of course, it gave me more time to study for my physics test on Friday that I am getting a little anxious about. I would say this was a good time for a storm to roll through, after the crazy weekend I had finishing the community service project ASCE has been working on and answering questions about the clubs I am involved in at the open house. Wentworth handled the storm very well, thinking about the students; and faculty’s safety and making sure we are able to get food during the storm.

I cannot imagine how snow storms are going to be this winter if a hurricane impacts the city this much! It is very strange not leaving my suite, but I think everyone is taking the precautions to stay inside. So for now, I am just going to relax in my sweats and get some studying done, and maybe watch some netflix, while the winds blow outside!

The highlight of my past weekend was definitely the community service I did on Saturday. This is the second weekend that members of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Green Team got together to help build a wheel-chair ramp for a building on Tremont street. This building is a health center for the community, and is a place where people can come to get advice or information on a variety of health-related topics. The construction of this ramp is very vital to the organization because it establishes the accessability needed to benifit from the organization.

A couple weeks ago we dug and poured concrete foundations for the base of the ramp, and started to level out the ground so that the ramp could be placed there. This time around we had to build the decking of the slanted part of the ram, and start to put the decking on the platform area. Even though this was hard work, and this weekend was very cold, it was a great opportunity to learn first hand about the construction process. Since I am Civil Engineering, our goal is to do the mathmatics and planning behind structures such as these, but many of us do not have the experience of building the structures ourselves. I believe that this helped me understand a lot better how things have to go together and be built in order turn out to be a useable product. With the help of one of the Civil department staff, Professor Hopcroft, we all had a great time and learned a lot about construction and each other! And it always is a great feeling to know you helped out the community.

Last Friday marked one-third of the way through the fall semester, and I cannot believe that I have been here for almost two months now! Between WOW training, WOW week, and school work it feels like I have been here for ever, but at the same time I feel as though I haven’t gotten to explore the city much. There is just so much to do on campus that sometimes you forget about what a great city Wentworth is in. I love doing events on campus and WOW week was amazing, but sometimes it is good to get out and see Boston. And I have found out that I have not really seen much of Boston, which everyone makes fun of me for. But there is so much to see! Like the New Student Programs Assistant Director, Emily, cannot believe that I have never been to the Boston Commons. I mean I have walked by it, but just never had the opportunity to actually go and enjoy the beauty! However, I have gotten to see a lot of stuff this year that I didn’t my Freshman year. I have already been to the Hatch Shell for a free concert(which was amazing), the Museum of Fine Arts(yes, I know it is right next to our school) and this past weekend Castle Island!

So this weekend I was out near Castle Island anyway with my friend, so we decided to go and walk around. He hadn’t been there in years, and since I had never gone it was the perfect opportunity to go sight seeing. However, it was kinda cold so that was a little annoying, but it was beautiful just watching the planes land and take off over the water. My friend is also a huge history and civil engineering buff, so of course I got a tour of the castle and all of the surrounding islands. Did you know that Deer Island was built in order to allow expansion in the city, not just for our current population? Only six of the eight holding tanks are used today, and there is enough room for eight more on the island! So I got to learn something new about the city I live in pertaining to my major. After we walked around, we went to Jerry Remy’s to eat, since that restaurant is such a New England thing. Its equivalent to Chickie’s and Pete’s back home, so its always strange to eat at a sports bar and not have crab fries. But it is such a neat atmosphere, and to be able to look out on the water while eating was amazing.

So my advice is to enjoy the Beauty of Boston! There is so much to do and see that it may take you years to accomplish it, but this is an amazing city to be able to go to college in. I do not regret my choice to come here at all, this is definitely the best college town!

Being that this is the start of the third week of school, classes are starting to become the norm to all of us. And with that means all of the work that is assigned to us! Not to scare any of you, but there is more work than in high school. But there should be, right?! This is the beginning of your career where you will most likely have eight hours of work a day, or more, in order to succeed and get the job done. But honestly I don’t mind the work at all! Sure, it is a lot, but it is interesting stuff that you want to learn about if you picked your major because you love it(like yay math and physics and free body diagrams!!!). And it is not overwhelming amounts that they are giving you. Your teachers know you have a life and other classes and they respect that, which is awesome! But no matter what major you are, you will have work that needs to get done and just by looking at it it may seem intimidating. So that’s why you need to find your own personal time management skills to make the best of your time and make sure you have free time to do the things you want to do, like explore Boston with your friends or join a club!

So the way I manage my time is a planner. Let me tell you, this thing is my life!! I thought I lost it one day and started freaking out. But anyway, so I have to label every event on my calendar in the front so I don’t forget about it(because I tend to do that a lot) and color-code it based on what it is, ie. club stuff or tests or miscellaneous stuff. Then I write all of my homework in the daily part and when it is due, and any important things, such as yoga class or a doctors appointment, that I may forget about. And as for managing my time for homework and stuff, I make daily goals of what I want to get done and set aside time each day to do it. It is also nice to try to get stuff done ahead of time in case something comes up, like if you get sick and want to go to bed super early, so you can afford to do that without missing any of your due-dates.

Those are just some of the things that I try to do to keep myself from getting stressed out and be a good student! Everyone’s preferences are different, but you will figure out a way to organize your life in no time once you put your mind to it!