MKEC Intern Experience: From Classroom to Real-world Projects

August 20, 2025

“The poet John Keats once said, “Nothing is ever real till it is experienced.”  This summer, our MKEC interns got a chance to test the validity of that sentiment as they put all they have learned at school into practice in the world of engineering.

Hands-on experience

At MKEC, we want our interns to get a taste of what it will be like when they become engineers. No practice projects for our interns. From day one, we treat them like part of the team, asking them to translate the skills they’ve learned in the classroom to the real-world projects our clients have commissioned.

“One thing that really stands out is how hands-on it has been,” says Isaiah Shoulders, a senior at the University of Oklahoma. “You’re given freedom from the start. Most other places are afraid you’ll delete all their files in your first week.”

Our interns work on a variety of projects in their time at MKEC to give them a broad perspective on their chosen field.

“I got to do a lot of different tasks,” says Sara Vance, who is studying mechanical engineering at Oklahoma State University. “I feel like I’ve been exposed to all the different parts of what we do. It has been a good representation or mechanical engineering.”

From classroom to real-world projects

So much of engineering school is about solving math and science problems that can make the world of engineering feel very abstract, which is why our internship program is all about translating those problem-solving skills into everyday engineering scenarios.

“Most of our engineering degree is just solving equations,” Vance says. “There are some calculations you do, but not many. With the projects I worked on, it required lots of calculations which is different from what you learn in school.”

And often our interns encounter things they haven’t yet learned in school.

“We had to have a crash course on things we haven’t learned yet,” says Lizette Alferez, a junior at Kansas State University who is studying structural engineering.

But once our interns are up to speed, they have the opportunity to work on a variety of different projects. This summer, some of the projects our interns contributed to included a fast-food restaurant drive-through, a Catholic grade school and church, a roadway widening, a baseball complex, and a mechanical piping system for an ammonia fertilizer facility.

“One project that I really liked was for Notre Dame de Sion grade school,” says John DeVore, a senior at the University of Kansas who interned in our site civil department. “I got to go out and survey. It really let me see both the beginning and the end of a project.”

Learning from others

The learning curve from the classroom to the field can be steep, which is why many of our interns had personal mentors who were there to answer questions and offer guidance.

“We worked closely with experienced engineers on a daily basis, which was very helpful,” Alfarez says. “They were willing to take time out of their day to teach us.”

But it’s not just our mentors that take time to invest in our interns. All of our team members are willing to lend a hand.

“What I enjoyed the most in comparison to my last internship was that there’s a system of people that I was able to ask for help,” Vance says. “When my mentor was unavailable due to meetings or other project commitments, it was easy to get in contact with other people who could answer my questions.”

Leaving a step ahead

While MKEC benefited from the work of our interns, many students will leave feeling like they have a leg up on their classes.

 “In my first rotation at MKEC, they started me with transportation,” Shoulders says.  “Since I haven’t taken the transportation class yet, I’ll actually go back to school and have an upper hand on the content.”

Other interns agree.

“We haven’t taken concrete or steel or wood yet, but we’ve touched on the main concepts this summer, which will give me a head start,” Alferez says.

Looking toward the future

Learning how different disciplines work also helps our interns make decisions about their futures.

“I would say that I didn’t even have site civil on my radar,” DeVore says. “Turns out I really liked it.”

Learning new skills can also give interns a different perspective on the types of work they would like to do.

“Careerwise, I’ve never done any design work before, so it has been interesting to try to design a system,” Vance says. “Now I’m more open to design work for engineering.”

Whether MKEC’s interns are diving into a project, learning something from a co-worker, or pondering their futures, as they head back to school, all would probably agree with Keats that experience has made the ideas and concepts they learned in the classroom more real this summer.