Hoffman Estates Resident Getting a Jump Start on Her Career through UIC's Guaranteed Paid Internship Program

Engineers are problem solvers. And the six departments that make up UIC’s College of Engineering developed a solution to put freshmen on the path to early success. It’s called the Freshman Engineering Success Program (FESP), and it is designed to motivate and support students with their studies. It also rewards them with a guaranteed paid internship at the end of the year.

The program, now in its third year, consists of a series of sessions and group projects encouraging students to learn more about their discipline and how to build an engineering sense by using their existing math and science skills. Throughout the year, the students participate in at least two general sessions, two team-based mini-projects, and are introduced to the wide array of resources at UIC to help them achieve academic success. Additional support comes from required tutoring sessions with by undergraduate engineering students who are dedicated to helping engineering freshmen in their math and science coursework throughout the year.

“The idea is to guide the freshmen from the very beginning, and teach them about the about engineering and its different disciplines,” said Dr. Mustafa Mahamid, a clinical associate professor in the Department of Civil and Materials Engineering. “The program gives the freshmen a better understanding of the curriculum they are in, and full exposure to what they will be studying over the next four years.”

Apart from providing student with projects and tutors, the program introduces students to the professional workplace. They learn how to write a resume, what to expect during an interview, and have the opportunity to learn from industry professionals who visit the campus for speaking engagements.

“We prepare them for the real world, in terms of team work and how the different engineering disciplines work together and with other professionals,” said Mahamid. “Additionally, we discuss how to behave in the workplace, and the use of proper communication on the phone and in email. We cover what is appropriate and what is not appropriate.”

“We learned how to make a resume, which I have never done,” said Diana Briones, a civil engineering student, who participated in the program during its first year. “They taught us how to respond to emails. The program instructors emphasized proper grammar, not using emoji, and basic things that you take for granted and are not taught in high school.”

Civil engineering student Oksana Zurawel, of Hoffman Estates, participated in the program last year and found it to be beneficial in many ways.

“It’s all about getting career ready,” said Zurawel. “We had professors or people from the working world come in and talk to us, and it was really good for making connections and networking.”

Gaining Real-World Experience
Students who successfully complete the FESP requirements and maintain a GPA of 3.2 or greater during the first and second semester qualify for the Guaranteed Paid Internship Program (GPIP) during the summer that follows their freshman year.

The freshmen are placed in engineering firms in the Chicago area or in a research laboratory at UIC, where they are exposed to real world engineering practices, build relationships with industry professionals and college professors, and gain valuable experience. In its first two years, more than 150 freshmen have participated in the program and worked summer internships, which included Briones and Zurawel.

Briones, who is now a junior at UIC, was part of the first freshmen class to participate in the program, and landed an internship with Primera Engineers in downtown Chicago, where she worked on transportation projects.

“I learned a lot. I didn’t know engineers had anything to do with pedestrians and bicycles,” said Briones. “But bicycles are a hot topic with engineers because we are looking at getting vehicles to places and now we are adding bicycles to the mix, and it gets complicated quickly.”

With one internship under her belt, she landed her second internship after her sophomore year and worked as a research assistant with Assistant Professor Didem Ozevin in the “Nondestructive Evaluation of Civil Structures Laboratory.”

Both internships exposed her to different aspects of engineering and she credits the FESP and GPIP for providing her with experiences that are helping her make important decisions at an early stage in her career.

Zurawel, a sophomore at UIC, participated in the two programs last year, which helped her start networking and secure an internship with the civil engineering firm Mackie Consultants, LLC in Rosemont, Ill. Mackie Consultants is part of The Burke Group, and is a top engineering firm in Illinois and Indiana.

“My experience was awesome. It was all engineering work” said Zurawel. “I learned how to work with MicroStation [a software engineers use to create two- and three-dimension designs], and the rules of how to design, with most of it focused on storm water design.”

“One of my projects during the internship was to design a crosswalk, and it will be implemented,” she said. “When it’s being built I can say ‘I designed that.’”

Another benefit to the internship was being introduced to UIC Professor of Practice Christopher Burke, who owns Christopher B. Burke Engineering.

“Most students don’t take his classes until senior year and I know him already, which is pretty cool,” said Zurawel.

After completing her internship, Zurawel pursued an extended internship during the fall semester on days when she is not in class. Now she is working twice a week in her industry and loving it.

“I am gaining a lot of experience,” she said. “Everything I am exposed to was new to me. It’s not what I was expecting and that’s a good thing. As a freshmen, you have math and physics and it’s not really engineering courses, the internship is all new experiences.”

With multiple opportunities to attend other colleges, Zurawel acknowledged the Guaranteed Paid Internship Program as a key factor in choosing UIC.

“If I wasn’t in the FESP, I wouldn’t have had an internship or even thought of applying for an internship,” she said. “I got into all of the colleges I applied to. But an internship is huge as a freshmen, and it is one of the reasons why I decided to go to UIC.”

Learn more about the Department of Civil and Materials Engineering, FESP, and GPIP atwww.cme.uic.edu.