MKEC Interns Find Experience Challenging and Rewarding

August 20, 2026

Experience matters, and when it comes to the next generation of engineers, getting real-world experience before graduation matters a lot. Each year, MKEC hosts a variety of interns from several different schools, and this year, we hosted 12 interns, nine in Wichita, two in Overland Park, and one in Oklahoma City. Internships provide opportunities for our interns to learn and grow their engineering knowledge while improving the soft skills they’ll need in the workplace.

Steep learning curve

Taking knowledge out of the classroom and applying it in the real world is the biggest benefit of an internship, but it often comes with a steep learning curve.

“It was hard at first,” said Sophia Nguyen, a junior mechanical engineering major from the University of Kansas who worked with our industrial-energy team in Wichita this summer. “It can feel frustrating at first because you are so new, but you work through it and things definitely get better. Looking back on it, it was really valuable.”

Joey Heideman, another KU junior who is majoring in electrical engineering, spent his summer in our Overland Park, Kansas, office as part of our power and delivery team. He also felt the early stages were challenging, especially when it came to the software.

“The learning curve with ETAP was hard just because I’ve never used a power systems software like that before,” he said. “But I was able to work through it with the people here in the Overland Park office.”

Kelson Fears, a senior civil engineering major from Oklahoma State University, rotated through all of the divisions at our Oklahoma City office.

“The learning curve was for sure difficult, but each rotation helped me to overcome that,” he says.

Lizette Alferez, a senior structural engineering major from Kansas State University, gained a different perspective this summer as a returning intern with MKEC. “The level of responsibility that was given to me this year compared to last year was unexpected,” she says. “Last year, it was more of a “learn-and-practice” and I was helping with bits and pieces of projects. This year it was a “do-and-discuss” set up and I was able to see projects from start to end.”

Quick access to help

The biggest part of an internship is learning, but at MKEC, we want all our interns to have easy access to help when they need it. Nguyen and Fears said the location of their desks made it easy to ask for assistance.

“My desk is right in the middle of everyone else’s, so whenever I need help, I just turn around and ask,” Nguyen says. “Someone’s always there.”

“Me, too,” Fears says. “I’m in the middle, so there’s always someone around.”

While Heideman says he had plenty of opportunities to ask questions, he also received help from an outside source when he was learning the Bluebeam software.

“One of the ways the team helped me with that was by signing me up for different webinars and stuff like that to help me learn and get face-to-face help from the Bluebeam team,” he says. “That was very helpful.”

Stimulating projects

At MKEC, our interns don’t just watch others work or work on practice projects. From day one, they are an important part of our team, contributing to real projects.

“I definitely feel like the work that I had wasn’t busy work,” Nguyen says. “I was working on a project down in Oklahoma for a fertilizer plant. That was my favorite project because I was able to write the proposal for it and be in meetings with people outside the company, just doing the whole process.”

Fears agrees.

“I think it’s definitely good when you’re working on something to know that you’re doing it for a reason, that it’s actually getting built,” he says. “My favorite project was the first one I worked on. It was a bus parking lot, and I got to pretty much see the whole project from start to finish.”

Heideman has enjoyed seeing how what he has learned in school connects to the projects he has tackled

“It’s nice to see the practicality of the work I’m learning in school going to the real world,” he says. “My favorite project was the fertilizer plant in Nebraska. When I was up there, I was able to talk to the city foreman and go through what he wanted to do for different panel elevations for the control rooms and gain his input on that side of things.”

Alferez was able to work on a project that few interns ever have the chance to.

“My favorite project I had the privilege of working on this summer was the Midland Zoo – a brand new zoo in Midland, Texas,” she says. “Although stressful and overwhelming at times, it’s really cool to know that as an intern, I got to work on the first new zoo being built in the United States in almost 30 years.”

A little bit of fun

While our interns work hard, we also want them to enjoy themselves in a variety of activities.

“I really liked the intern appreciation lunch that we had here in the Overland Park office,” Heideman says.

In Wichita, Nguyen participated in several social events.

“The organizers made some great events for us, and it’s been really fun to hang out with some of the other interns at Top Golf and Chicken N Pickle,” she says.

Sports were the focus for Fears.

“I just really enjoyed hanging out with everyone here and playing sports like volleyball and basketball,” he says. “It was a lot of fun.”

Focus for the future

As our interns head back to school, they take with them a summer’s worth of experience that can help inform their decisions about the future.

“It’s been really enjoyable,” Nguyen says. “I can definitely see myself doing this. It was tough at first to grasp what all the piping industry encapsulates, but the more I work through it, the more I learn, the more I want to do it.”

Heideman also learned new things that he can see doing in the future.

“I definitely really enjoyed it,” he says. “I really like power. That’s a big part of electrical engineering, and I really like the protection and controls side of it.”

The opportunity to try different things as he rotated through the teams at the Oklahoma City office helped Fears narrow his focus.

“I really liked the general civil and sight development section,” he says. “That’s probably my favorite. So, I’m hoping to get into that in the future.”

“I would like to continue building onto my engineering judgement,” Alferez says. “As an intern you tend to question a lot of your work or decisions. But with time and experience, confidence in your work grows stronger.”