EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd., a Tetra Tech Company is a consulting engineering and science company. I am fortunate to have found this internship opportunity especially given my plans to study biology. Therefore, the experience that I will gain this month will dramatically aid me in deciding my field of interest.
I have worked here for 4 days now. In the past few days, I have learned a number of things. Most importantly, I had the chance to work on small assignments and projects that vary from day to day. There’s not a boring day at work. Usually, work starts at 8:00am and ends at 5:00pm.
The first day was mainly onboarding work, where we got to learn a lot about the company and its regulations. Later this week, we will be going on an amphibian survey, where we will be listening to northern leopard frog calls. Therefore, parts of the second and third day were spent on researching the frog, learning about its habitats and of course, listening to its calls. I never realized that frog calls vary so much between species! In addition, we researched the habitats of many amphibians in Alberta and compiled the information in a table. We also started writing documents for safe work practices.
The fourth day was the most exhausting yet most fun day of work to date. We did a vegetation assessment in the Kananaskis area near a cadet summer training camp. It was about an hour drive to the area and about 10 hours of work in the field. The other Shad intern and I measured the diameter of trees at breast height, length of new stems, and collected materials for biomass sampling. From a whole day out in the fields, I learned quite a bit. Now I can tell the difference between spruce and pine trees, recognize Canadian buffalo berries and dwarf birch, and how to use the measuring equipment.
I feel so fortunate and lucky to have been able to work here. Without doubt, I look forward to the rest of the month!
Amy Li
EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd.
Calgary, AB