Intern Zach Meyer- Baughman Company

Hi My Name is Zachary James Meyer the First. Here is a little background information on me. I live on a farm, and we just got a new dog named Rosco. I wanted the name Jeer (Hunter in Luxembourgish) but my family over ruled me. I have four siblings. My two older siblings are married. They have beautiful wives and each one has three children. One of the siblings has another child on the way. One just had their third less than a week ago. I am the Godfather of two of them.  I am a senior in high school. I am playing my fourth year of football and extremely excited about the season. We have our first game this Friday against Andover Central. I am a team captain, and I wear number thirty-four. I am also extremely excited to start my life on my own away from home. This internship will help me decide which path to take away from home.

The reason I want to be a civil engineer in this internship class is because my science teacher once told me I could be a good engineer. Some other reasons are that I am good at math and science, no one else in my family has ever been an engineer, and it is a decent paying job.

   

My internship is at Baughman Company. I really do not know much about them but I am excited about starting my job experience with them. I am excited to see if I will enjoy civil engineering.  They are located in downtown Wichita right off Kellogg. I will be going there from 8-10 A.M. Tuesday-Thursday starting September 14.

If I end up going into this career field, it would take a four-year bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. This degree requires a lot of Calculus, more math, and many science classes which include Physics and Chemistry.

I hope to learn what a civil engineer does during this semester. I want to know how much a civil engineer goes outside. I would like to learn how much interaction civil engineers do with other organizations and construction workers. I would love to know how much time they spend on the job site they have designed. I want to really understand what they do in the office, too. I want to see how much they use CAD.  I would like to learn the hours of the day that they work. I want to know how much they interact with the government body in the cities that they are building bridges and roads. There is so much that I am excited to learn about in my new internship and this class. I am even more excited if I will be able to apply it to my future life!!

A part of the internship that is unnerving is my success at the job. I want to be as successful as I can possibly be. What if I am horrible at this job? Only time will tell and my effort should lead me as I go.

I consider leadership as my strongest skill. I do not know if my personality will fit in with the company or not. I am somewhat talkative and I laugh a lot during the day. At least I think I am. Something I really need to work on during this internship is my stubbornness. I need to listen to my boss and do the job without questioning whether or not his way is better or if my way is better. I have experience on jerry-rigging stuff at the farm to complete tasks and objectives. I do not know if this will apply to the engineering side, but it is experience in building. I also have experience in CAD. I took a class sophomore year on CAD. We did a balsa wood bridge building contest and I won. Maybe this sets me apart from the competition or maybe not, but it does give me some experience.

My post secondary plan right now is the ROTC program through Kansas State University or Iowa State University. In doing ROTC my schooling will be paid for by the United States Military for 8 years of active or reserve duty. I plan on taking this route to become an Army Ranger and for earning my civilian degree without student loans. After my eight years of service I can either chose to keep serving or to leave the military and begin working on my civilian career. After my father retires from farming I also plan on taking over the family farm. I plan on taking this route because of what skills I have, money, and other personal reasons.

Baughman Company has been in Wichita for 48 years. The company prides itself on its innovation and creativeness. Clyde Baughman started Baughman Company in 1930.

Thanks for reading my blog post!

Zachary J. Meyer