Stantec, what're they all about

[jltabot]

So I recently got an internship with these guys starting in May. I'm a third year mech eng student, with no engineering related experience, but will be working in their residential dept doing primarily civil work.

And so I just wanted to hear if you guys have any experience with the company, work-life balance... anything really lol


Thanks in advance!

[killramos]

A buddy of mine did 2 coop terms with them. They worked him like a slave, 10 hour days. This was in NS though so might be different in calgary.

[riander5]

Originally posted by killramos
A buddy of mine did 2 coop terms with them. They worked him like a slave, 10 hour days. This was in NS though so might be different in calgary.

10 hour days ? My god how did he survive. Poor bastard was probably getting hourly too !!

To OP - any experience is better than none, but as a mech myself in your shoes is try to get away from civil related work. If it's not possible then not then no biggy.

[jltabot]

well my viewpoint is just getting any engineering experience period. according to the job description, its residential site visits making sure they're following the engineering drawings.

[dirtsniffer]

Sounds awesome. Field work is good. It's one thing to know the drawings, its another to get out on site to see them being implemented. You'll probably catch some mistakes from both sides and be able to gain practical engineering skills.

Also it's going to be stiff competition this year. I wouldn't be turning down an offer personally.

[16hypen3sp]

According to a recent meeting between a certain municipality that shall remain nameless, Stantec, and AB Transportation, ... Stantec is really good at throwing blame around and bickering back and forth so no progress is made on any projects.

[DeleriousZ]

My pops worked with stantec for a good long while, probably 25+ years. They hired a regional manager that was unsuited to be a human being so he said peace to the company. From what he tells me it's a decent company to work for, depending on the area there is lots of great guys.

[Kijho]

[killramos]

Originally posted by riander5


10 hour days ? My god how did he survive. Poor bastard was probably getting hourly too !!

To OP - any experience is better than none, but as a mech myself in your shoes is try to get away from civil related work. If it's not possible then not then no biggy.

He made it seem pretty shitty when his job was to stand out in the rain watching concrete dry , sometimes they let him grab people coffee.

You couldn't pay me enough to do that for 10 hours a day with an engineering degree.

[Cos]

.

[lasimmon]

My buddy works for them in Red Deer. He isn't a huge engineering fan but seems to enjoy doing it there for them.

He also gets a lot of time off when he asks.

[TheCheff]

Originally posted by jltabot
So I recently got an internship with these guys starting in May. I'm a third year mech eng student, with no engineering related experience, but will be working in their residential dept doing primarily civil work.

And so I just wanted to hear if you guys have any experience with the company, work-life balance... anything really lol


Thanks in advance!

It sounds like you will be a field inspector doing quality control for underground utilities(wat/stm/San) construction, possibly some surface works as well. If you are civil discipline it is a great starting point to gain practical experience and obtain a better understanding of the engineering design you will be producing in the future.(land development/transportation etc...)

The position usually involves a substantial amount of OT as you need to be on site when the contractors are working in the city of Calgary. I did it for 2 summers(not w/ Stantec) and was able to earn a lot of $$$. Paid off post secondary after my first year of graduating.

As for Stantec it is a large company which brings the benefit of job stability with a structured culture. I agree with Cos in that I prefer smaller engineering firms as oppose to something like Stantec but I have heard good things about their work environment from friends.

As for the comment regarding a municipality and AT, public industry is 75% inept, inefficient and The good people are bogged down by beaurocratic BS, so I would guess it is probably the other way around.

[jltabot]

Thanks for all the input! I'm ready to put the hours in, being broke is never fun haha. Papers are already signed and I have a start date, so there's no asking to be switched around. And I'm willing to take the experience even if it's not specific to my designation since I'm sure I'll learn something useful.

They had told me OT was a given, I'm not entirely sure what work I'll be doing or who's going to be supervising me but I guess we'll see how it all goes. I'm doubtful about paying my loans off right away, Im studying at UofS so my debt is substantially higher than if I were living at home. Which is probably the thing I'm most excited about.

Working full time and living at home FTW! Haha

[mo_money2supe]

Just a cautionary note about obtaining experience outside of your discipline: APEGA accepts up to 12-months work experience for your P.Eng. application after the 5th semester in Uni (so essentially after 2.5 years), which means your summer/intern/co-op jobs from this point forward could be considered for your application in the future. You will need a min. 4 years' experience for your P.Eng. application; however, if your experience is outside of your discipline, it requires 5 years' experience. Furthermore, APEGA gives a lower weighting for technology-level experience (ie. field work). I myself am a Civil and have been in the land development industry since 2005, three full years of which were as a Resident Engineer (ie. field inspector like your upcoming position). When I applied for my P.Eng., because of the lower weighting of field work even though my experience was within my discipline, I had to obtain at least 5 years experience for my application to be considered. Good thing I was lazy with my application and didn't actually apply until I had 5.5 years experience! Uncertain how APEGA may view your upcoming out-of-discipline experience for your future application, just be forewarned that this time may not be considered in full.

Cautionary tales aside, you will appreciate your experience as a field guy. You will learn to liaise between *ahem*incompetent office staff (yes, engineers included), and over-the-top "I know how the entire universe operates" contractors. Even if the work is technically outside your discipline of study, you will gain valuable experience even in just life experiences alone.

As for that comment about working 10-hr days, HA! I regularly worked 70-80 work weeks when I was a field inspector (like the OP's upcoming position), but the OT (plus mileage expenses) paid so well that if I had to annualize my income then, it'd still be higher than my income now! And my income now is almost triple that of my field inspector income then! To the OP, I too went to U of S and while the cost of living might be higher than living at home, trust me, you'll earn more than enough with your OT (assuming 1.5 OT pay and tax-free mileage pay) to easily pay off your tuition/loans. I personally spent at least half of my summer earnings each year on my cash-dump of an old Civic AND had more than enough for tuition, rent, daily going out to eat, and weekly shananigans.

PS. I currently work for (and have worked for) Stantec's smaller competitors. I know plenty of people who work or worked at Stantec (chances are, I know your supervisor), but IMHO, I personally would not work there simply due to being treated only as a number. There's a lot more growth opportunity at any other company than Stantec's Old Boys Club group of seniors.

[realazy]

Originally posted by mo_money2supe
Just a cautionary note about obtaining experience outside of your discipline: APEGA accepts up to 12-months work experience for your P.Eng. application after the 5th semester in Uni (so essentially after 2.5 years), which means your summer/intern/co-op jobs from this point forward could be considered for your application in the future. You will need a min. 4 years' experience for your P.Eng. application; however, if your experience is outside of your discipline, it requires 5 years' experience. Furthermore, APEGA gives a lower weighting for technology-level experience (ie. field work). I myself am a Civil and have been in the land development industry since 2005, three full years of which were as a Resident Engineer (ie. field inspector like your upcoming position). When I applied for my P.Eng., because of the lower weighting of field work even though my experience was within my discipline, I had to obtain at least 5 years experience for my application to be considered. Good thing I was lazy with my application and didn't actually apply until I had 5.5 years experience! Uncertain how APEGA may view your upcoming out-of-discipline experience for your future application, just be forewarned that this time may not be considered in full.

I've never heard of this. I'm a Mechanical Engineer (minor in Petroleum) academicallly, but I worked in Production, now Development and had no issues getting my P.Eng with 4 years experience (even used 8 months of internship experience). I have co workers without the minor and they didnt have issues either.

Learn something new everyday I guess...

[killramos]

^ Most petroleum engineering is within the scope of practice for a mechanical engineer due to how general the applicability of mechanical engineering is. Strength of materials, multiphase fluid flow, thermodynamics. All mechanical topics. Petroleum is just more specific.

You should consider that designing a car would be well outside of your scope of practice now that you have your P Eng. with petroleum experience though.

Now say you had an electrical engineering degree ( which one of my coworkers has ) completely different topic.

[diamondedge]

Originally posted by killramos
^ Most petroleum engineering is within the scope of practice for a mechanical engineer due to how general the applicability of mechanical engineering is. Strength of materials, multiphase fluid flow, thermodynamics. All mechanical topics. Petroleum is just more specific.

You should consider that designing a car would be well outside of your scope of practice now that you have your P Eng. with petroleum experience though.

Now say you had an electrical engineering degree ( which one of my coworkers has ) completely different topic.

What's wrong with an electrical engineering degree?

All of the Stantec people I have worked with were professional and excellent.

[killramos]

Originally posted by diamondedge


What's wrong with an electrical engineering degree?

Nothing but it is one of the more removed in terms of technical relevance to mechanical / physical problems. As such you would have to do more on the job training to be designated a petroleum engineer by Apega.

At least where I went to school the electrical students were the first to start moving away from general engineering classes and into proprietary discipline classes (I took 80%+ common classes with civil,chemical students until the end of 2nd year versus 30% in second year with a buddy of mine who went electrical).

Basically as long as you are ok with not using anything you learned in the advanced years of school fill your boots.

Not sure why you would put yourself through the torture of electrical engineering to not use it haha.

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