Isaiah’s High School Engineering Intern Experience

By Marissa Knutson – Coffman’s San Diego office had the pleasure of hosting Isaiah Castro for a high school internship. We shared the engineering experience with this bright young leader and are thrilled to hear that he is considering a future career in engineering.

More than just fulfilling a grad requirement

Isaiah attends The Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High School in Point Loma, where every student takes part in an internship program during their junior and senior year. The school’s mission is to prepare a diverse range of students for postsecondary education, citizenship, and leadership in the high technology industry. Coffman was lucky to have Isaiah as part of our team for the last few weeks as he fulfilled the internship requirement to complete his junior year.

Isaiah has always enjoyed math and science and said he wanted to be an engineer ever since he was a little kid. He came into the internship curious about mechanical engineering and got invaluable insights into the different engineering disciplines during his time here.

Hands-on engineering experience

Isaiah joined the San Diego fire protection team working on egress routes and fire extinguisher placements in CAD and learned about fire protection system design and codes. He had never heard of fire protection engineering before but left the internship wanting to explore it as a future career and has even started looking into college programs for fire protection engineering.

As part of his high school curriculum, Isaiah gave an Internship Presentation of Learning (iPOL) to the fire protection team on his last day where he described the skills he brought into the internship and the skills that he left with. Isaiah explained he came in with time management, communication, and note-taking skills, and was able to apply those skills to the workplace environment during his internship. His time at Coffman helped him enhance his existing skills and he described he is leaving the internship with efficient note-taking skills, the ability to create attainable goals, and more confidence in speaking up and communicating with his coworkers and peers.

What’s next for Isaiah?

Beyond the engineering and workplace skills he gained, Isaiah said he enjoyed the welcoming environment of the office and the team atmosphere he experienced as part of the fire protection engineering team. We couldn’t be more excited to hear that Isaiah plans to pursue an engineering degree after graduating from high school next year.

Congratulations on finishing your internship, Isaiah! Your future is bright in whatever you pursue, but we hope to see you working for Coffman again in the future!