Summer of 2016 was not an average summer for me. After hearing a presentation from a former NVC student, Marcus Nejera, in Dr. Zhou’s Introduction to Engineering course that talked about the importance of searching for internships.

I felt inspired to search for one myself. In that process I applied to various companies, including some located in Asia. To my surprise, I was accepted to intern over the summer with an EPC company by the name of Toyo-Thai Corporation Limited (TTCL). TTCL is in Bangkok, Thailand. They also have an American division that goes by the name of Toyo-Thai United States (TTUS).

In this internship, I was chosen to be the first western student to train with the company. I was offered compensation for my work as well. So, I accepted and immediately following the end of the spring semester, I flew to Thailand where I would spend the next three months. I worked with the instrument department of the company, and was given two projects to work on. The two projects I worked on were for PPG chemicals, and two chemical plants they are building in Southern Thailand.

As a computer engineering major, I learned a lot of valuable things, involving control systems, and instrumentation. The projects I worked on were real projects the company was doing for customers, so I got the full experience.

Aside from the learning aspect of the internship, I also made many new friends and got the opportunity to travel across southeast Asia, and throughout Thailand itself. The opportunity I got was a great eye opener for me, and has given me more motivation to continue my education, and to search for more opportunities. It taught me that putting yourself out there is important if you want to find opportunity, and success. If you don’t try, then you can never succeed.

Bobby Reyes—Current Engineering Student at NVC