From engineers to accountants to business administrators, 26 college students have arrived and are honing essential workplace skills at Savannah River Remediation this summer.
The internship program, one of the most anticipated times of the year for SRR employees, provides hands-on experience for students that will set the stage for life after the classroom.
The interns - all college sophomores, juniors, seniors or recent graduates - are on site for a 10-week experience to work alongside and learn from current SRR employees. The students were selected from a process that drew approximately 650 applicants from across the nation. This year's interns are earning degrees in fields such as engineering, business, law, accounting and marketing, to name a few.
Many South Carolina schools are represented in this year's internship program, including the University of South Carolina, University of South Carolina Aiken, Clemson University and Claflin University.
Other schools represented are Georgia Regents University, Utah State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Georgia, Shippensburg State, University of Florida and North Carolina State University.
One of the summer interns, Dylan Sutton, a senior environmental engineering major at the University of Florida, is working with SRR's Environmental Compliance group. He said he is interning at SRR to put his education into action.
"I spent four years learning about different technical methods, taking diverse engineering classes and spending countless nights studying, and I wanted to apply it to the real world," Sutton said. "After looking at many internship postings, SRR caught my attention as it is known for its excellence in safety and engineering expertise."
SRR Intern Program Coordinator Gayl Hoel said the summer internship program is valuable to not only the company, but to the community, as well.
"Our interns have the opportunity to attend nuclear industry-related events and perform community service," Hoel said. "SRR is committed to helping others, and summer interns are encouraged to embrace that value to get the full experience of working with our company."
SRR is the Liquid Waste contractor at SRS, which is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. SRR is a team of companies led by AECOM with partners Bechtel National, CH2M and Babcock & Wilcox. Critical subcontractors for the contract are AREVA, EnergySolutions and URS Professional Solutions.