She excelled at math and science in high school and enjoyed wood shop and design classes. When it came time to pick a career path, civil engineering at Penn College was a natural choice. With graduation in the rearview mirror, Sarah is now an engineer with the Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania firm where she completed two internships.
My favorite part of the Civil Engineering program is the experience you get throughout college. The class sizes are smaller, so students form a better relationship with other classmates and teachers. Many of the courses throughout the four years have hands-on learning. Multiple classes are in the soils lab performing different tests or in computer labs learning about AutoCAD or another program. The Civil Engineering major also has their own room on campus to study or hangout; there’s even a microwave, a coffee machine, and multiple white boards! The best part about the Civil Engineering program is how many employers tell us that they want and try to recruit Penn College students to work for them.
One of the courses you take during your senior year at Penn College is Capstone, which is a group senior project. My group designed a hydroponic greenhouse and warehouse. It is required to incorporate multiple Civil Engineering disciplines; the ones we worked on were geotechnical, transportation, structures, and land development. Our group tried to make it as realistic as possible throughout the design and construction process of the project. I know other capstone groups took their projects to municipalities to propose a project.
To be successful in our program, you must have good time management skills. This is something I learned while going through college. Another important skill you need in the Civil Engineering program is problem-solving skills. There will be multiple times throughout our careers where there is a problem and they will look to the engineer to find a solution.
Thankfully, I have completed three internships with two different companies. I worked for Trumbull at the Scudder Falls Bridge Replacement Project in the summer of 2020 and 2021. I had another internship during my senior year at Livic Civil, where I work now. At this internship I did different design work for local projects around the Bloomsburg area.
My dream job is to work for a company where I am happy and motivated to go to work. I also want to pursue my Professional Engineer license. I would really like to work my way up through a company and become a leader in that company.
"After a program tour, I knew Penn College was the right fit for me. I met some of the awesome professors and saw the soils lab. During the tour, we were also told about the hands-on experience that you can’t get anywhere else, which solidified my choice."
Sarah Booher
From community parks to high-traffic bridges, you'll play a vital role in creating and maintaining the infrastructure where we live, work, and play.
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