Kira Corrie – Engineering Internship

Hello, my name is Kira Corrie and I am a senior at Garden Spot High School. I am enrolled to be taking college classes at Penn State Berks starting the fall of 2021. I am pursuing to achieve a degree in mechanical engineering. I decided to take on an internship during my senior year because I really wanted to better understand the field of engineering and get an authentic hands-on experience.

My internship is with Superior Plastic Products, which manufactures fencing, railing as well as lawn and garden products. Superior Plastic Products is located right in New Holland, PA and their sister company is Key-Link Fencing & Railing. For my internship, I am a part of the product engineering team, which is a team of five people, excluding myself. Most of my work is done while using a computer. I use the CADD program SOLIDWORKS to create designs and adjust pre-existing designs. I have helped with testing the strength of metal posts and organizing the collected data. Other projects I have done include creating a standard operating procedure on how to create revisions to drawings, an excel sheet with the inventory, and testing results from taking the temperatures of lights. The projects that I have worked on so far have all been successful.

This internship has pushed my boundaries in a positive way and helped me grow more knowledgeable of what it is like to be an engineer. When I first started my internship, I was quite intimidated because I was surrounded by adults, but as time went on, I felt more comfortable and shared more of my thoughts and ideas. I have learned the process of creating a product from the brainstorming stage to when the product is able to be sold.  I have used the engineering process in my high school classes, but the process of creating a product for a large company is a much longer and tedious process.

The biggest takeaway that I have from this experience is what I want exactly from a job. I have come to the realization that I enjoy collaborative work and just sharing a room with others more than independently working. I also want my future job to include a more even mix of computer work and hands-on tasks. In the future I want to be designing products; however, I am still unsure of what objects and devices I want to design. Working with Superior Plastic Products has only made me want to apply for more internships in the future, so I can learn more from those who are already in the engineering field.