:: www.RobLigtenberg.nl :: Ballast Nedam

My internship at the construction company Ballast Nedam.

Monday, January 31st until Wednesday, June 21st, 2006.

During the third year of studying Civil Engineering it is necessary to do an internship to get some practical experience in a real company in order to learn and apply the theory learned during the first two years. This can also help to give you a good idea on what career path you want to take after finishing studying. We were all obliged to do an internship in the planning/designing phase of civil projects as well an internship in the implementation/realisation phase. Because I had already finished an internship of 100 days at a consulting and engineering company, it was now time to search for a construction company.
I applied for an internship at Ballast Nedam in the 'Infra' department. This company is a big player in the construction world, plus it has an office near my city. They got my letter and accepted me after a 'job interview'. I spent the most part of my 100 days at the regional office in Nijverdal. This internship was mostly about implementation/realisation, although I did some designing work too. I also worked for about 5 weeks in a bungalow in the rural area to the south of Almelo. Here I helped with designing and making corrections to a plan to connect 500 houses in the surrounding of Almelo to the pressurized sewage system. At the end of my internship I worked for 2 weeks on a construction site in Nijensleek. Here we reconstructed the roads for cyclists and put new rainwater sewage pipes under the roads, including all the connections to the houses and the holes in the street. For this job I had to wake up really early, and the weather there was far from good, so I didn't really enjoy it. You can see some photos of the locations where I've worked on these projects in the Photo album. I learned a lot during this internship, but I also know now that this is not something I will do when I have finished my study. I prefer sitting in an office and thinking up and drawing up innovative designs regarding water management.