McNeese Civil Engineering Seniors Complete Internships 

Senior civil engineering majors at McNeese State University, Brant Courville and Francis Chukwuemeka, spent time interning with Dashiell Corp. in downtown Lake Charles and with AECOM in Traverse City, Michigan.  

Courville, from Lake Charles, discovered that workplace culture affects productivity throughout his internship at Dashiell. 

“I will be choosing where I work with a few factors I never considered until this internship,” he said. “I’m going to keep asking questions because when you stop asking questions you stop learning.”  

Before the internship, Courville took a soil mechanics course which helped him to understand the foundation calculations at his workplace.  

“I also learned throughout my internship how to use programs that are specific to my job and how many factors play into it. There is much to be considered for real-world situations,” he explained.    

Courville has received a job offer from the company and plans to continue working at the same office following graduation. 

Chukwuemeka, from Nigeria, learned the importance of teamwork and communication throughout his internship at AECOM and plans to use these skills to become a valuable individual on any team.   

“My time at AECOM helped set me up for success because of its hands-on nature and how much I was able to learn,” he explained.   

Chukwuemeka gained the ability to push through problems and design systems for those issues in his engineering classes and applied that throughout his internship.   

“Outside of the classroom, I learned how to rest and take breaks. If school was a race, it’s a marathon at work,” he expressed.  

Planning to stay in the civil engineering field as a career, Chukwuemeka chose his major because of his passion to design the world around him and make life easier for others.   

“I chose McNeese because of the location and its small student-teacher ratio,” says Chukwuemeka.  

Courville decided to attend McNeese because of the opportunity to stay near friends and family in his hometown.   

“I was originally going to major in business administration for construction management because of experience,” he said. “After talking to some people, I decided to take the challenge of engineering. I figured I could always become a project manager as a civil engineer but not vice versa.”  

Both students believe in leading with their passion and eagerness to learn while diversifying their knowledge and encourage all students to engage with organizations and events that pertain to their major and desired industry.