Rebecca Son MCRP ’19 concentrated in Design and Urban Informatics at the Bloustein School. In the summer of 2018 she was a Planning Intern for WSP, a consultancy in Philadelphia, where she researched bicycle-pedestrian safety in the city of Philadelphia and worked on transportation planning policy documents, among other responsibilities.

One challenge for Rebecca was learning how to enter into various timelines of projects. Often entering projects in the middle, she quickly needed to determine each project’s objectives, methods, scope, and questions in order to be productive and gain the most from the experience. Additionally, managing multiple workloads was an important skill for working with several projects at once.

To future interns, she suggests proactively seeking out opportunities to find organizations in their areas of interest, such as attending conferences. “Make time to interact with people who are doing the things you’re interested in—if you have a strong interest, people will pick up on that very quickly when you talk to them.” She added, “Don’t take the first offer. You can afford to be picky.”

One of Rebecca’s greatest learning experiences during her internship was being able to participate in the concrete decision-making process behind transportation planning. After researching bike-ped safety in Philadelphia, she went on to work on similar issues in her Transportation Studio at Bloustein, and said, “It was a really interesting comparison.”