Two months ago, Sydney Seyfarth made the nearly 2,500-mile trek from Lafayette, Indiana to San Francisco to intern with Webcor’s Estimating department—her third time traveling across the country for our summer internship program.
“I really enjoyed my first internship here in 2023,” she says. “When Webcor’s college recruiters returned to my school that fall, their presentation reminded me how much I liked working there and wanted to go back.”
Sydney had discovered Webcor through her academic advisor in the fall of 2022, when she was a freshman at Purdue University. Growing up in a family of woodworkers, she’d always known she wanted to be part of the planning/building process and was eager to start interning with a reputable construction company.
When she spoke to her advisor about internship opportunities, he praised Webcor’s summer program and suggested she look into it further.
No other general contractor she researched came close. She applied for a spot in the summer 2023 internship program and waited.
That April, she interviewed with SVP, Project Planning Allison McCue, a Purdue alumnus who had once joined Webcor as a PE intern. After a lengthy discussion, Sydney left feeling more energized and motivated than ever before.
“I had an even better feeling about the company after interviewing with Allison,” she says. “I was really hoping the opportunity would work out!”
Before she knew it, she was flying to San Francisco for Webcor’s intern orientation. That first summer was a blur of embed logs, shop drawing revisions, product data review, document backlog updates, RFIs, and “lots and lots of submittals.” She finished with a climb up Verde’s tower crane, where she soaked in Mission Rock’s breathtaking city views and reflected on her first internship. To this day, it remains one of her favorite Webcor memories.
This summer, she’s diving into budget proposals, project bids, scheduling, and takeoffs for the NorCal Estimating team in our King Street office. The highlight of each week is Precon/Estimating’s team meeting, where she gets to hear new insights from seasoned Webcorians and gain helpful perspectives.
“I love the process and excitement for new projects,” she says “Every project is different in its own way, which makes the industry really fascinating. I feel like it’s impossible to know everything—there’s always something new to learn!”
It’s been a demanding summer, but the lessons learned over the last two years have fueled her confidence as she continues to tackle new responsibilities and explore new facets of construction. She’s learned that with thoughtful organization, note-taking, and Googling (“Google Images is your best friend in this field”), she’s unstoppable.
“Listening, writing down everything you don’t know, and researching it later are key to learning in this industry,” she says. “And shout-out to Project Manager Luana Galbeno for showing me the literal daily payoff of staying organized!”
Outside of her engineering pursuits, Sydney’s an avid reader who typically reads two books per month and read 70 within the year that COVID hit. She also enjoys hiking when she’s back home in Southern California (“not too many good hikes in Indiana, unfortunately”), skiing, and participating in Air Force ROTC—last summer, she went to an Alabama boot camp for three weeks of military training.
