Since their program began at Paschen on July 6, the six Paschen Scholars from Westinghouse Academy attended trainings and seminars, and learned about construction and engineering from Paschen employees and management. This past Friday, they completed their first year of time with Paschen. They will return for the next two summers to continue their education as Paschen Scholars.
In their first week, the Scholars met representatives from each department and participated in onboarding training, or “Boot Camp.” The Scholars spilt into groups of two and spent the day at Washington Wabash, Union Station, and Lakefront trail with our safety supervisors to get acclimated to being on a jobsite; and learned how to document would-be safety hazards.
In their second week, the Scholars learned about the importance of shapes in construction (triangles, domes, and arches), while preparing to build their own personal shelter structures. The Scholars picked the shapes that they wanted to base their designs on, then designed their structures, and determined the material that would be used based on of the sample materials provided, then the labor and overhead and profit. Paschen interns helped the Scholars build their structures, which were then displayed for Paschen employees to review and talk to the Scholars about their designs at the Drill and Grill event that following Friday.
In their final week, the Scholars worked on AutoCAD to create as-builts of their Personal Shelters. We visited the architecture office of exp US Services Inc, where the architects talked about the work they do and the concepts behind some of their designs, as well as their college experiences.
On Wednesday, the Scholars visited the Stroger Hospital JOC project, where they went over plans and specs and discussed Quality Control. They did a quality check sheet and discussed any issues they discovered with the Superintendant. Afterward, we went to see a Stalworth jobsite at Northwestern University, and the week ended with a Friday in the Field trip with Interns and staff, to visit jobs on I-90 and our Ozinga jobs in Des Plaines.
We look forward to seeing our Scholars again in July of 2017!
