First Week at Ideal- Dylan Cook

Hello everyone, I would like to first introduce myself to my fellow interns and everyone else at Ideal Contracting. My name is Dylan Cook and I am a senior at Ferris State University, planning to graduate in December of this year. I was assigned to the PDPM program with GM in the Pontiac area, which covers a number of sites. The first few days I was working on the MUST safety modules and other orientation stuff, but after that, on Wednesday and Thursday I was able to take a tour with two of our Superintendents and they showed me around the area. I have also been working with my mentor, Joe Nowakowski and some Project Engineers in the office to learn about their daily activities and steps to the PDPM projects. Soon I am hoping I will be able to work on these with little help. I am excited to spend my summer here and to gain skills and knowledge that will be great help once I graduate.
 
The First week at a new job or internship is always an interesting experience. You get bombarded with new names and people, places and new sets of procedures on how to do things. While it is expected that a newly hired intern isn’t the most effective or most helpful during this time, one can still feel like they are being unproductive and feel like they are not part of the team. It is always helpful to be reassured that they are doing a good job, even if they feel like they’re not doing much. So far Ideal Contracting has done just that. The guys in the job trailer have taken the time to show me stuff, slowed down to help me out and took the time to know my name already. I was given a great walkthrough of how the Pre- construction PDPM process works and I feel I will be a helpful member of this team shortly. This makes me very optimistic about the summer and that I will feel fulfilled with my time here when this summer comes to an end. I am looking forward to see where the summer takes me and where I end up in December after graduation.