Building the Foundation: Aeryn Anderson's Internship at Pittsburgh's Future Airport
Pittsburgh’s new international airport is set to open in 2025, but undergraduate Aeryn Anderson already has a pretty good idea what it will look like. This past summer, Anderson interned with S&B USA Construction for 12 weeks at the new airport site. She says the experience challenged her to explore construction management—when she’d previously focused on design.
Anderson supported creating the roadways, four small bridges, and one large bridge surrounding the new terminal. She was tasked with creating packets of drawings, materials lists, roadway plans, and erosion control plans. “My internship included a lot of communicating with the foreman and supervisors—getting the needed materials,” she says.
“At CEE, we have to find solutions on our own. We are given the tools but need to figure things out ourselves. This was really important when I first started on the job site.”
Getting to know the site was her biggest challenge—with five miles of roads, it took time to get acquainted with where things were and what they were called. In this situation, she relied on the experience gained at CEE to help her through. “At CEE, we have to find solutions on our own. We are given the tools but need to figure things out ourselves. This was really important when I first started on the job site.”
She also saw first-hand just how seriously everyone on the site took safety. “I completed a lot of safety walks for S&B USA where I would talk to people in the field and get their opinions on what safety was like in the company.” Anderson would discuss the good and the bad and use the information to create reports on improving safety.
Anderson also completed safety walk-throughs for the Allegheny County Airport Authority, which operates the international airport. “I’d go around with a group of other people from other companies on the job site. We’d walk around and pick out three good things and three bad things safety-wise.” Her analysis provided valuable insight while allowing her to work alongside engineers and employees from other organizations.
Anderson voluntarily worked a few night shifts to understand how the processes differed from ‘regular’ working hours. She also watched in awe as her team poured concrete on the second level of the terminal’s large exterior bridge.
She adds that the organizational skills gained in her classes, as well as classwork on how to read drawings, were especially useful.
Anderson remains undecided on a career path but plans to pursue a design internship next summer to balance out this past summer’s management work. She believes that internships provide a valuable opportunity to try something new and encourage students to be open to different types of jobs. “I didn’t envision myself taking an internship in construction management, and I really liked it. Next summer, I will try design and figure out which one fits best for me.”