Anyone entering the Congress Centre of Instituto Superior Técnico on Tuesday morning, February 27, would come across an unusual scenario: a speaker was enthusiastically describing the company where he works and his work experiences with the entire audience turned back to him.
It’s all part of the blind pitch activity, in which Técnico students have the opportunity to meet various civil engineering company representatives and, based purely on what they hear, they have to evaluate the presentation by filling in a form. This is one of the activities of the Civil Engineering Seminar Series (JEC), organised by Fórum Civil, which took place from February 26 to March 1, at Técnico. “I thought it was great”, says André Gomes, a third-year Civil Engineering undergraduate student. “Many companies have a good organisational structure and are quite clear about what they want”, he adds, explaining that he attended the activity “to know the best decisions to make”.
André Venes has just come from a JEC lecture. The second-year Civil Engineering undergraduate student was interested in learning more about the car park designed for the Alcântara riverside area in Lisbon. Several obstacles to be faced during the work were analysed, such as pre-existing archaeological constructions, basements of neighbouring buildings, the water table (given the proximity of the river) and the permeability of the region’s soils.
“I think that the visit will be good”, says the student, referring to the visit to this construction site, scheduled for the end of the week. This will be his first time in a construction site. “I’m not sure what to expect”, he confesses, adding that he attended JEC “to decide what [he wants] to do for his master’s degree” and “find out more about opportunities for summer internships”.
Francisca Andrade, a third-year Architecture Integrated Master’s student, shares her interest in doing a summer internship. “I want to get to know the construction market”, she says as she strolls through an atrium of the Civil Engineering Building filled with exhibition stands of several civil engineering companies.
