Pilot Initiative in Iowa for an Intern Development and Management Program

Abstract

This paper summarizes the efforts and the outcomes of a pilot student internship program developed jointly in 2012 by the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Institute for Transportation at Iowa State University. In 2012, Iowa was the only state DOT to use federal funds for the internship program, which was initiated as a summer program with 56 interns assigned to DOT offices and projects across the state. The paid internship program was extended into the fall semester with 22 students assigned to offices in Ames, Iowa. The program had engineering and nonengineering positions and was developed to provide experiential learning opportunities, to address Iowa DOT's workforce needs, and to attract undergraduate students to transportation careers. More than 80% of the interns and more than 90% of the supervisors, choosing from multiple choice responses, rated the program outcomes as great or okay. The interns valued opportunities to work in professional settings where they had responsibilities entrusted to them, interactions with other professionals and practitioners, an opportunity to understand real-world application of their course work, and the chance to gain first-hand experience working on transportation projects, as well as to learn about expectations in a professional setting. Supervisors noted the importance of establishing a continuation of the internship and cooperative education programs for future students. Nearly 100% of the interns and fully 100% of the supervisors said that they would recommend the program to students. Because of the student contributions during the internship, Iowa DOT was able to complete many activities that would not have been completed.

An Overview and Preliminary Assessment of a Summer Transportation Engineering Education Program (STEEP) for Ninth Graders

“…The importance of developing the future transportation workforce has been recognized nationally across the United States [1][2][3][4][5] . There has been growing concern as to whether there will be enough qualified and skilled professionals in the future to meet the emerging demands and challenges of transportation systems 3,4 .…”