Author: John Taylor | Major: Civil Engineering | Semester: Summer 2025

Lounging around St. Patrick’s Cathedral after work

Interning abroad in Dublin these past 8 weeks has been one of the most impactful experiences of my life. Thanks to the Honors College, I was able to gain hands on experience at a practicing engineering and architecture firm while engaging with the unique, enriching culture of Ireland. Since I recently switched to Civil Engineering, the internship abroad program through API offered me opportunities that I feared would not be available to me otherwise. Ireland has always intrigued me. Past the shamrocks and St. Patrick’s Day parades, there’s a proud nation with a long history of strength and resilience in the face of oppression. This summer, I wanted to see what Irish culture was truly like, and how its history influences the modern Irish perspective and outlook on the world.

Interning at AKM Design has been instrumental in confirming my choice to pursue Civil Engineering. Through working on design projects spanning from the drainage system of an individual housing unit to the catchment areas of a 400-unit development, I ignited a passion for sustainable development and design. With our population continuing to grow, it’s important now more than ever to develop our infrastructure in an environmentally sustainable manner. I’m grateful that my supervisors at AKM emphasized the importance of collaborating on projects at different stages of development, giving me a holistic view of how a project goes from an idea to reality.

During my first couple of weeks at AKM, I spent my time familiarizing myself with the file management system and practicing my newly learned CAD skills on a private drainage system to serve a quadruplex. The basic principle of private drainage design is directing the water from a housing unit to the public drainage system in the most efficient and economical way possible. Since water is used for all sorts of things in modern living standards, two separate systems must be installed, one for the storm water and one for the foul. After gaining an understanding of the movement of water on a small scale, I then began working on tasks that required looking at entire housing developments. In general, before you can begin building the public drainage network, you first need to partition the respective housing development into different “catchment areas” based on the permeability of different materials. By calculating the total area of different surfaces (roofs, yards, permeable and impermeable paving), you can then determine the amount of runoff produced by those areas during a precipitation event. This information is pertinent in determining the size of drainage pipes required to adequately serve the development and prevent destructive flooding.

Thanks to only working 4 days a week, I had the availability to travel all across Ireland and Europe. Seeing the countryside of Ireland was at the top of my bucket list. One of my favorite movies is Banshees of Inisherin, and while visiting Galway, I was able to take a ferry to the Aran Islands, where the movie takes place. Another memorable trip in Ireland was when me and a lot of friends took a bus tour to Belfast and hiked down to Giant’s Causeway. Ireland is unique in its combination of tumultuous history with such a serene natural backdrop. The day we visited Belfast was the day before July 12, a significant day where Union loyalists and protestants march through the streets and set fire to gigantic bonfires in Northern Ireland. Outside of Ireland, I traveled to Edinburgh and Amsterdam. My favorite out of the two was Amsterdam, where me and two other friends rented bikes and traveled all around the city. Biking was such an immersive experience and made me feel like a local. Also in Amsterdam, I was able to meet up with a couple friends from Arkansas who also happened to be in Amsterdam that weekend. There’s truly nothing better than sharing an incredible city with your favorite people in the world.

The thing that surprised me the most during my study abroad experience was the amount of non-Irish people that I had the privilege of working and interacting with. AKM has employees from all over the world, including Iran, Brazil, Romania, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Colombia, and more. An engineering and architecture office is unique and collaborative on its own but getting to experience that setting with people from all over the world was truly special. I loved learning from my coworkers’ cultures and languages and seeing how their personalities and temperaments were influenced by their own experiences and backgrounds. If this experience has taught me anything, it’s that people are the greatest resource in learning about the world.