What was your very first GIS related job/internship?

[JordanMcMillan]

Hi all,

I'm interested in the job or internship title of your very first job/internship. What was that first job that got your foot in the door? A simple job title will suffice, but if you have the time to elaborate and maybe explain how you were able to score the job/internship or maybe even some advice that you might give to an undergraduate? If you're feeling super ambitious feel free to elaborate even further and give some examples of what your daily duties were at this first job.

I've just started to apply for GIS related internships so I think it will be really cool to see what other people did when they were at their first step in their career.

cheers!

[LisaTurner]

Hey Jordan,

I don't recall the exact title, but it was something like Park Maintenance something or another. It was an internship for Crater Lake National Park. I was lucky enough to study under a professor who spent summers interning there, and he liked to bring 1-2 students with. It was an unpaid position with the exception that a living area was provided, and there might have been a few bucks a day in food expenses covered to. We spent the summer plotting out all of the park pull outs/ viewing areas along with other things as well using Trimble gps, and I believe AutoCad. Good luck in your internship/ job hunting. It might not hurt to ask your professor's if they are aware of anyone looking for interns as they might know of a few good starting points.

Lisa

[JordanMcMillan]

Thank you for your reply. That sounds like it would have been a fun summer for you.

[BlakeTerhune]

My first paid experience with GIS was a summer internship with the local Township government. Classic make parcel section map type stuff. I've actually been doing GIS in local government ever since...

[JordanMcMillan]

Oh cool. I've done a little work with census data and parcels sections. Pretty interesting stuff.

[MicahBabinski]

Hi Jordan,

My first GIS job was part-time GIS Specialist for a non-profit called Hopelink located in Bellevue, WA. The work entailed digitizing service area boundaries based on narrative descriptions for shuttle services serving people with disabilities. I then made maps of different sections of East King County which included the various transportation options and places of interest for special needs populations (clinics, senior centers, libraries, etc). I also used demographic data from the 2000 census and the American Community Survey to perform some overlay and proximity analysis of clusters of high concentration of people with special needs where they were not within a reasonable distance of transit infrastructure. Then I presented the findings and analysis to the King County Mobility Coalition which used them for grant proposals.

By the way, if looking to build a GIS resume from scratch, http://www.giscorps.org/ would be a good site to check out. They coordinate short-term volunteer projects which can typically be done remotely. It's a great way to take your first step into working in the GIS field.

Good luck!

Micah

[AlexMahrou]

Field Data Collection Specialist

[JordanMcMillan]

Thank you for your reply. I checked out that website and it seems like that's exactly what I'm looking for.

[LauraKaufmann]

Hi, Jordan! I'm just getting started with my own GIS career, but I really like hearing everyone's stories. My first internship was actually with my university. We looked at the geographic distribution of students in conjunction with other variables like major and grade point average. At the time, I wouldn't have called it "market research," but that's pretty much what it was. I gave a presentation to the university's advertising agency and they hired me on the spot. I never thought I'd end up in marketing, but I really like it because GIS helps us stand out with our clients and gives me opportunities to be innovative. It's become a much more accessible technology and I feel like there are some unique opportunities out there if we can be creative about how we use it. Good luck!

[AsrujitSengupta]

Geodata Analyst with Esri Tech-Support