Internships

Mary Claire Jennings Brenna Tabone

The LAEP program has not only encouraged me to grow my knowledge and perspective, but to be bold. My USU family has inspired me to search for internships outside of the Intermountain West, which led me to being the summer intern for Design Workshop’s Austin office. I’m working on various projects that are in or approaching schematic designs and construction documentation. I am putting a lot of skills I learned in Logan to use while learning a lot about day-to-day operations in an incredible firm with an even cooler studio culture.

Gavin Smith

I am a Planning Intern at the Bear River Association of Governments. I have worked on some cool projects. My favorites have been constructing a hazard mitigation GIS map for communities to apply for government funding and creating a community input map that shows what the community feels they need. I have been able to attend many meetings and conferences that have given me great insight into what planners can accomplish and who they are in communication with. Most days I am in my office working on GIS applications, but I get to travel to different municipalities and go into the field to work with those BRAG services.

I am working an internship with Norris-Design in their Phoenix office this summer. I’ve been working a lot with Jordan Goff and Michaela Clinger who also started shortly after I arrived so it’s been cool to see the USU alum doing well here! Working with this firm has been an awesome experience. They treat the interns super well and have us jump in like any other employee right away. The environment is super supportive and everyone there is working to make sure everyone succeeds. I’ve been able to collaborate on a dozen or so projects already in just about every stage from first time site visits and initial connecting to construction document prep and custom details. I’ve also been able to participate in groups like “Pollinator Power Rangers” and helped put some emails and other resources together for pollinator week to send to company as a whole. A lot of the work is CAD based and I feel more confident in CAD software from the last 6 weeks of working there than I’ve learned in any classes. That being said, I definitely feel like the coursework and teachings did a great job preparing me. We learn a lot about how to learn a program, not necessarily how to be an expert in any one given software which helped me transition easily into the softwares and processes I’m using this summer. That being said, there are still lots of opportunities to work outside of just CAD and create presentations in InDesign, go on site visits/ help with construction administration type work, meet with potential and existing clients and more.

Outside of the work itself, Norris-Design has done a great job of creating a positive work environment that supports people in all stages of their career and from all sorts of backgrounds. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with learning that they give interns paid holidays, some PTO, and a number of other benefits that seasonal type employment doesn’t always offer.

Fall 2022 Lectures