Landscape Design Internship

I landed this great internship last June. My official start date was July 3, same as my dad’s official start date at his new company, and the day before July 4th, therefore an easy one to remember. I didn’t know who this company was; they’re not some big-name prestigious landscape architecture or engineering firm but rather, a landscaping company with offices throughout the southeast, up through North Carolina. I was hired in the Orlando office, and I made it clear from that start that I’d be commuting every. single. week… to Miami for classes.

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I write this now as I’m on my way out, after training my replacement for a month or so now. I’ll board a one-way flight to Europe next week with no precise plan around returning. They know this, and they’re by all means willing to take me back upon my return, but they don’t know what exactly I’m going to Europe for, because I wasn’t ready to tell many people just yet. I mean I feel like a crazy person, or at least I imagine they’d perceive me as such, as I go off to a web development bootcamp in Paris, intent on an entire career change, after just finishing my master’s program in landscape architecture and environmental and urban design.

I learned after three years in grad school, two official internships, and some on-the-side gardening and design projects that this is not what I want to do with my life. However, I’ll delve more into that later, and focus right now on the highlights of this internship.

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I was the only designer on staff, and the only one they’d ever had on staff. I was kind of the guinea pig, they were trying out this new intern thing. I’d say I had a lot of autonomy, as there wasn’t really anyone to train me (not as a designer at least – but rather in areas of horticulture and landscape management) and they weren’t too concerned with micro-managing nor monitoring my every move. I had access to keys to company trucks if I needed to make a site visit, snap some photos and take measurements. I learned how they wanted their proposals done, and I was in charge of writing up the estimates for my projects. I sat in on interviews and disputes, because the bosses don’t speak Spanish and often the employees don’t speak English – whereas I speak both. Sometimes I arrived at 6 a.m. with the crews, to drive with the guys to a project site and show them precisely how I had envisioned its layout.

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They even allowed me to work remotely from time to time – a huge perk as I was spending half the week in Miami, sometimes with enough downtime to squeeze in a few bid proposals. One time my car nearly broke down early on a Friday morning while driving back up, but I made the best of the situation and worked from a cafe in downtown Vero Beach while my car got fixed at the nearby Firestone.

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Design projects were mostly small jobs – a parking lot island here, some new plantings around the neighborhood entrance sign there. Others were slightly larger – fresh new ideas for the neighborhood park, or the mile stretch of sidewalk outside of the homeowner’s association. My designs became much simpler as the months went by, in part because these fancy neighborhoods had strict rules about what could be implemented, and also because these landscape maintenance experts had their own insights as to how certain plantings will perform in certain areas. I saw quite a range of scenarios, and overall had a great learning experience.