Scalva electric is an electrical contractor that you can hire for any of your electrical needs.
What is LINK
LINK Is a program at Animas High School that connects juniors with local businesses by doing an internship. The internship is three weeks, 30 hours a week and during those three weeks we have school complete off so that we can put our full attention into the internship. It is an opportunity for the junior class to see into the working world while learning a skill they can use in the future. Learn more about the LINK Program at ahsinternships.weebly.com
Elevations Job Site:
During my LINK internship, I worked on a job site with a general contractor and then for an electrician. During my first week, I worked for the general contractor doing mainly clean-up work both inside and outside the houses. I did a bit of everything during this week like helping the painter and putting up siding. This week I got to experience what a job site was like and how all the trades come together to create a house. Although I wasn't able to do any electrical work, I enjoyed working and didn't feel like any part of it was a waste of time. I continued this type of work until Thursday of the second week where I started working with the electricians putting in lights and putting in outlets. I liked this work but there were a lot of lights that had to be put up and for each light, you had to assemble them and choose the color. This stressful work because we were in an almost finished house so we couldn't drop anything or touch the walls. It taught me to be hyper-aware not to mess up the walls and make more work for the cleaners. By the third week, I was working with the electricians fully, prepping and then pulling wire through a house. The first day we were planning out where the wire would run and cutting holes in the walls so the wire would be contained in the walls of the house. The next few days we were running the wires in the house, I was in control of the low volt wires so your tv, phones, fans, and the garage door. Running wire was hard for the first few runs I did because you aren't able to staple the wire down until you have them running to the tv, outlet, lights, etc. The work is also mainly on a ladder running wire in the ceiling which is hard because you are constantly holding tools above your head. By the end of the week in the house, we were cleaning up the wires, running them to the outlet boxes, and stripping the wire to tuck into the boxes so that the drywaller wouldn't drywall over the wires.
LINK Reflection:
Coming into this internship I have had some experience on a job site and a lot with power tools such as drills, screw guns, and reciprocating saws. Having some skills with these tools helped me alot but throughout the internship, they got stronger. When I was first asked to run a wire through the garage of a house it was harder for me to drill the holes in the roof so it took me longer than it should have. But by the end, I was working faster and more used to the type of work we were doing. In my internship, I did a lot of cleaning and mindless work. It was hard by my third week to sweep the same house for the third or fourth time. The other part of the job I struggled with was that I would be given a verbal list of jobs for the day and would not be very supervised until I finished those jobs so I was rocking on my own making decisions that would be finalized in the house. Most of the work I did would only be looked at by an inspector so I had to be precise and make myself ask questions so I don't make any mistakes. I had to learn to let go of my ego and ask basic questions that seemed annoying but asking those questions would assure me that I was doing my work right. When I was able to get into the groove of things I could complete my job efficiently and because of that I was able to run every piece of low volt wire in the house. When I was done with any job, I was put on another one immediately. I was always being used when I was at the site, where it was by the painter, the site manager, or just hauling wood across the job site. At no point did I ever feel useless. I learned that I like the work we did but I don't want to become an electrician. I wanted to have more of an impact than wiring a house and the amount of waste that is used on a job site is hard to look at. I could see how the work would become mindless after a few years and when you are an electrician for a smaller company you are constantly running around and doing different jobs which seems overwhelming. I don't want to have to drive all over the place doing something different, I would rather work on something bigger like a windmill farm or hydroelectric plant. With that said Having experience with smaller electrical projects will help me in the future.