In the summer of 2023, I worked at The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company at the WuXi STA site in Middletown, Delaware. The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company is a construction contracting company. They were awarded the construction contract to build a campus for WuXi STA – a pharmaceutical research, development, and manufacturing company.
I was able to get this internship by attending the Mechanical Engineering career fair. UMD attracts many construction contracting companies, so students interested in similar internships should attend. Many students choose to not attend the career fair in their freshmen year because of the misconception that freshmen can’t get internships. Although many employers don’t recruit freshmen, there are still lots that do! Go prepared with a resume, and demonstrate your interest by joining engineering teams (Concrete Canoe, Terrapin Rockets, SEDS, Terps Racing, Steel Bridge, Balloon Payload, and more) or professional societies (ASME, Women in Engineering, and more).
In my daily work, I helped to manage mechanical, electrical, and plumbing trades during the preconstruction phase. I wrote scopes of work and handled relations with subcontractors to receive competitive bids, making use of software like Procore and Autodesk BuildingConnected. I scrutinized bids to identify noncompliance with scopes of work (SOWs) or specifications and addressed them during descoping meetings. I compared bids to select the most cost-effective choice. I attended daily standup meetings to understand how the work of other trades was progressing, and to address any consequences that may impact the trades I was helping to manage. For trades that were in the construction phase, I walked the construction site to ensure subcontractors were following proper safety protocols. I did quality checks to ensure subcontractor work aligned with the designated SOWs and specifications.
Around once a week, I met with a group of interns to work on a group project. All interns were put into groups and worked together to put together a competitive bid and compelling presentation to convince pretend-clients and their shareholders that our contracting company was the one to get the job done. I learned about estimating pre- construction costs and identifying what trades need to be involved on a renovation project depending on the particular requirements of the site.
My favorite part of the internship was touring different construction sites. It was fascinating to see how construction and design varies depending on the project and its context. For example, I toured an eBay warehouse designed to be extremely secure and keep its contents at appropriate storage conditions. I saw the construction of a school in Newark situated between existing city buildings, where special care had to be taken to be nondisruptive to the surrounding city. Another site was on the University of Delaware campus, where rooms were designed to prevent electromagnetic and other interference from hindering experiments.
Coming into this project with little knowledge in the construction space, I learned a lot about how construction works. I understood the timeline of a project. A client proposes a build, contracting companies bid for the project by showing their capabilities and previous work in relevant spaces, and the bid is awarded by the client. Then, pre-construction begins.
In pre-construction, the contracting company allocates the work of the project into trades. For large projects, each division typically has its own project manager, and the project manager splits the divisions into packages. An example of this could be a MEP division, where packages include fire protection, boilers, building electrical, site electrical, piping, and more. The contracting company defines clear SOWs per package, along with specifications designated by the engineers or other parties. These SOWs and specifications are sent out to other companies that may be interested in taking on a package of work. Those companies submit bids that outline exactly what work they will complete, along with any modifications to the SOWs or specifications. This may involve different warrantees, delivery methods, spare parts, timelines, startup assistance, equipment storage policies, owner witness tests, performance testing, overtime costs, and more. The construction management company then does descope reviews, which consists of a meeting with each bidder discussing their noncompliance to the SOWs or specifications, along with costs. After reviewing all candidates and weighing benefits and costs between companies carefully, the construction contracting company will award the bid to the package to the subcontracted company. From here, detailed work scheduling can begin.
Construction contracting companies are often the interface between the client, who presents their needs, the architects, who realize the client's vision into designs, and engineers, who design building systems such as HVAC. Construction contracting companies work to keep all players – especially the client – satisfied, which is highly contingent on meeting deadlines and staying within budget. This requires nimble project management skills and understanding of different disciplines within construction. It is critical to construct a project timeline with minimal contingencies in order to keep the project moving even when there are unexpected holdups.
A project manager must understand how their division can impact other divisions to prevent time spent waiting. This is absolutely the most important thing that I learned from my internship, and I will carry this knowledge forward with me through school projects, campus engineering clubs, and my future career.
This experience opened my eyes to the construction field and how every building is designed for a particular purpose. I realized that many companies have construction management divisions -- even companies you may not expect. This internship has helped me to narrow my career interests.