Harvey Scholar Travels - Vy in Peru

This past summer, I spent three weeks at the Civil Engineering field session, six weeks working in South Hampton, Long Island at the Mark C. Matthews Architecture, P.C., specializing in high-end, waterfront residential projects, and the last two weeks in Peru working on a water sanitation project. The Harvey scholarship allowed me to pursue an internship outside of engineering, leading to a sharp learning curve, both at the firm and in my personal life.

This internship allowed for me to learn about civil engineering through an architect’s lenses. I started my internship counting parking spaces for a client who wanted more parking spaces for his employees, then gradually worked my way up to proposing grading plans, site plans, ceiling plans, and renovating kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom plans. I made all these plans using the Revit program, which is a version of AutoCAD (Computer Aided Design) tailored for architects. I expected the actual process of designing to be difficult, but instead, I found it more difficult to learn the plan styles, nomenclature, methods, codes, and social consideration of each project. All of these aspects are small, yet they contribute greatly to the complexity of the job.

With each design or plan that I produced, I learned about how the world of architecture is governed and how as a civil engineering student, I bring something different to the table: the ability to understand the residences as structures withstanding forces of nature not just as creations for aesthetic pleasures. However, I must admit that the beauty in which the homes I was allowed to visit and work on are absolutely stunning works of art. Each detail was carefully chosen to enhance the experience of both the residents and their visitors. Here are some plans that I am most proud of:

On the weekends, I tried my best to not use my car to explore the East Coast. I was mostly successful with the exception of one weekend where I had to drive to a ferry in order to go to Rhode Island. In total, I was able to visit six different states (New York, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia) excluding Washington D.C. (District of Columbia). My modes of transportation included trains, buses, biking, and lots of walking. These weekends showed me that I did not need to go out of the country to find adventure, the United States is also full of exciting adventures.

My most memorable adventure is the first weekend going to Connecticut. It was a few weeks into being on Long Island, and I was craving Vietnamese food so badly! I figured out through some quick google searches that it is easier to travel to Connecticut to get Vietnamese food than on Long Island. So I walked about thirty minutes from my house to the Port Jefferson-Bridgeport ferry, hopped on, and an hour later, I stepped on Connecticut soil! It took another thirty-minute walk to the small Vietnamese restaurant that I found, and man, it was the best Vietnamese food I had that whole summer. After a short conversation in Vietnamese to the lady running the restaurant, I was directed to a Vietnamese grocery store a block away, and there I bought some crucial ingredients to every Vietnamese college student: soy sauce, chili oil, Thai ramen, mung bean desert, bok choy, and tofu.