CIFE student internships

Mini-internships that typically last four days over Spring Break (March 24 - 27, 2009 this year);

One-quarter internships, typically during the summer;

One-year internships, typically starting April 1 and finishing March 30 of the next year.

In principle, these internships are independent, but the mini-internship can provide a good recruiting opportunity to identify mutually-attractive opportunities for longer internships.

This year, students doing any of the internships are required to take a multi-course VDC sequence. Students preparing for any of the internships will use the same class project for related classes occurring in Autumn and Winter quarters. Ideally, interns will start to work on the actual project during their class, so sponsors will get an intern who understands lots of project details from the first day.

The success of the student teams is a testament to how good Stanford students are. Their success also points to the fact that the VDC tools have matured to the point where capable engineers can do highly valuable work very quickly. At the beginning of the quarter, most of the students had no experience with any of the tools. Within a ten-week quarter, while taking other demanding classes, they learned enough about both mechanics and methodology to do valuable work.

See a few few recent examples done on Mini Internships.

For sponsors, the CIFE VDC student team will provide:

VDC models that can be used to describe the behavior of a project design. Students will build 3D product models, organization and process models, 4D animations, and do several model-based analyses and. They will present their initial designs and analyses based on the results of their class project at the start of an internship, and develop one or more design versions during an internship.

Discussion with the sponsor engineer of ways the CIFE team used VDC methods in its analysis of their approach to the problem;

Opportunity for a small set of company engineers to work with the student team to extend these models to do a systematic analysis of a new design alternative, i.e., shoulder-to-shoulder experience with one or a few of your engineers in use of VDC tools and methods;

Analysis of the pragmatic value and predicted total economic impact of the introduction of VDC technology into your company, based on a small number of assumptions that you provide the Stanford team.

For internships, the sponsor organization needs to provide:

Access to a design-construction problem that is important to the company, including both a verbal description of the problem and some relevant documents including CAD drawings, project plans, specifications, organizations, requirements and analyses.

Suggestion for multiple models and analyses that will benefit the project. An explicit objective of all the internships is to perform at a CIFE 2010 performance objective level, including service of at least five business purposes including cost, constructability, organization and schedule risk, space use, energy and daylight.

An engineer who can spend up to an hour on the telephone in early October to describe the problem for the student team. The students would also like the engineer to exchange a small number of emails between mid-October and start of internship.

An engineer to meet with interns during internship.

An audience to hear the students present their models.

For mini-internships, sponsors will pay travel and subsistence expenses for the 2-3 person team and provide a simple workspace for them during their visit. For summer and one-year internships, it is the responsibility of the sponsor and student to establish a satisfactory arrangement for expenses and salary.

Last revised 8 September 2009