Last week I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Vicens’ lecture that attained information on his company, the different jobs and fields that exist in his company, and how undergraduates can properly be prepared to be qualified in the field. Dr. Vicens is the Group President for the Consulting and Engineering Divisions at CDM Smith. He began his discussion on the different services that his company offers to the public and the government. Before he went into more detail on the services they offer, Dr. Vicens made sure to tell us that there are many different careers for engineers and not all are technical.
The 5 markets that CDM Smith offers are: water, environment, transportation, energy, and facilities.
On his slide show, he had these examples to represent some of the projects that CDM Smith has done in each of the five services they offer. The one project that impresses me the most is the Marina Barrage in Singapore. CDM Smith received the Superior Achievement Award, which is the highest honor of the competition for the best project entry. When I learned that fact, I knew that CMD Smith was a world-class company and that we the students were very lucky to have him on campus and to have the opportunity to ask him questions.
Dr. Vicens then backpedaled a little bit to explain how the company was founded and where the company fits in the current United States and global market. He told us that CDM started in Cambridge and its main purpose was to start designing sanitary facilities. They were a small company that worked on local projects. Now they have over 100 offices in the U.S and over 5,000 employees worldwide! Even during these hard economic times, Dr. Vicens said that the company as a whole is breaking even. He followed that statement with a smile because he told us that was great news considering how bad the economy has been throughout the last couple of years.
The purpose of this lecture though was to enlighten us on the tools we need to further our careers. Dr. Vicens explained to our class that even people in the workforce need the tools to properly succeed because in year 2000, CDM learned that only 30% of the staff understood the criteria for promotion. To counter that, the company developed a program that helped the staff navigate through their years at the company.
There are four career paths:
- Administrative Services
- Construction
- Degreed Technical Specialist Path
- A Technical Support Path
What was relevant for us the students is the “degreed technical specialist path” because we are undergraduates studying to be environmental engineers. Dr. Vicens knew this as well, and explained to us how there are four different career paths inside the degreed technical professional career.
- Technical manager
- Technical specialist
- Program and project manager
- Client service manager
Dr. Vicens explained how he was so lucky to do all four of the different career paths that were within the degreed technical professional career. He made sure to tell us all that even though we have a technical degree, about 80% of the entire workforce at CDM Smith does some technical and some manager work.
At the end of his lecture he allowed the students to ask him questions for about 15 minutes and I thought that this was the most important and revealing part of the class. As a junior looking to find an internship for this summer, I was very eager to learn how the process works, and what I need to do to better my chance of retaining an internship for the summer. Dr. Vicens gave me some great advice. He told me that the best time to apply for summer internships was during my winter break. He said that the resume needed to include what projects I have been working on and if I have had any field related jobs. One new thing I learned was that I had the opportunity to write a cover letter that would be attached to my resume. This will allow me to further explain why I think I am qualified to be hired as an environmental engineer intern for the summer.