One thing that I liked about Connect Housing Blocks was how open and flexible the company was. I did not feel like just an employee because they wanted me to gain as much experience and knowledge as I did work for them. The first project I worked on was designing the basic modular apartments. Then while I was there they got a couple of new manufacturing machines and I got to learn a little bit about how those work.
After working a second term I feel like I have learned a lot more. I liked some of the challenges that we came across as we worked. For example not everything that is built in a 3-D model will always work in real life so there was always challenges and feedback coming from the people that were actually putting everything together.
What I wish was different
From what I have heard from talking to other students doing co-ops not everything I did would be an industry standard. In many different aspects Connect Housing Blocks is trying to innovate so it makes sense that they would be a little different. Being a start-up there is also not many companies that are doing what they are trying to do. So in that case there is not even an industry standard to follow.
I wish there had been a little bit more structure in the company. Sometimes it would be hard to find the person or thing that I was looking for. There also was not a set in stone way to record things so sometimes requests would get lost or forgotten about and changes would be made without people knowing.
Advice
One piece of advice I would share is to just try as many things as possible. Because Connect Housing Blocks is a startup they offer a unique experience that not many companies can offer. From the day I started to the time that I am writing this so much has changed. As my experience continues I expect even more to change at a faster pace. One side of a company that I did not expect to see was a little bit of the business side of operations. It being a smaller company I got to hear a lot about how a business works but also got to listen into some meetings. Being able to hear these meetings helped me understand hot to communicate, create and maintain professional and business relationships and I feel like that is an invaluable skill.
After working a second term one piece of advice would be to not be afraid of making mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes and sometimes it happens a lot. However as an intern there is a great opportunity to learn from mistakes especially in engineering. From my experience the first revision of something was never the final version and it sometimes it did not even work.
