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My internship at the consulting and engineering company Tauw.

Monday, August 15th, 2005 until Friday, January 6th, 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 consulting and engineering companies would best fit the requirements of the first phase, I applied for an internship at some of these companies. The first to reply to my letter was a company called Tauw in Deventer. I went there for a 'job interview' and they gave me a position for the 100 days I needed for this internship.
It is usual to start the internship sometime in September, but I decided to sacrifice some of my summer holiday and start in August. This way I would end the internship earlier and have some extra weeks of holiday in January. I did a lot of things at Tauw: I designed infiltration sewer systems, I investigated the costs for pavements which can let water pass through (so you don't get pools on the streets). I also did some investigations into the advantages of vegetated roofs and I compared mixed and parted sewer systems. My supervisors and close colleagues also asked me to take a car and go out and do some fieldwork. This was really cool! The first few weeks where pretty tough for me, but I grew more accustomed to it later on. At the end I didn't want to leave the company. My colleagues were really nice and often during our lunch breaks I went out with some of them. Sometimes I had lunch with some of my classmates (a couple did their internship at a company called Witteveen+Bos, which was located on the other side of the street). We often took walks through the wonderful medieval city center of Deventer, or along the river IJssel. During the New Years' lunch at the department of 'Water, Ruimte & Riolering' ('Water, Environment & Sewage') I said goodbye to my colleagues, as the 100 days at this nice company was up. In the Photo album I added some nice photos with descriptions of the desks where I worked and the cars with which I made several fieldtrips.