Student Journal - Canberra Student Chapter - Engineering Students Reflection on Vacation Work

I applied to work at Evolution Mining’s Ernest Henry Operation for the summer between second and third year, and I genuinely could not have predicted the incredible experience that was to come or the number of sunrises I would see! I had never really considered working in mining before, but this ended up being the perfect introduction with so many fantastic people. 

I joined as a mechanical engineering intern working in the mobile maintenance team. I worked on the reliability and safety of mobile plant. Across the summer I got to work on many different things including component failure analysis and improvements, light vehicle safety device changes, risk assessments and financial/budget tasks. I learnt so much across the summer and it was fantastic to see the practical applications of some of the things I’ve learnt at university. It was also great to spend time with people from such a wide variety of careers – I think I learnt as much if not more from the trades, operators and planners on-site as the engineers and I will take those learnings with me for my next adventure!

I was lucky enough to spend some time underground with the maintenance team and also with operators – getting to see a jumbo rig in action and riding in a surface dump truck were absolutely highlights of the summer! 

I also got to spend some time in the processing plant and see what the mechanical engineers, operators and metallurgists do there. This was great exposure to a different part of the operations and showed me a whole different side of site. 

A massive thank you to everyone on site who made this such a great experience. While I don’t have many photos from the summer (hence the birthday photo…) I will remember this summer and the people forever!