Month: February 2026

Reflecting on my experience evaluating internship offers, I can clearly see how compensation motivated my behavior and ultimately influenced my decision. At the time, I received an internship offer that initially seemed like a good opportunity. The role aligned with my major, offered relevant experience, and came from a company with a solid reputation in the construction industry. My first reaction was to focus on the long-term benefits and how the experience could help my future career.

However, once I reviewed the compensation more closely, my perspective began to change. The position required full-time hours in a high-cost area, yet the pay was barely above minimum wage and did not include housing or relocation assistance. After calculating basic expenses such as rent, food, and transportation, it became clear that the compensation would not realistically support living in that area without relying on personal savings. This financial strain made the opportunity feel less practical.

What truly motivated my decision to decline the offer was not just the low pay, but what the compensation communicated about the role. The expectations suggested real responsibility and commitment, yet the compensation did not reflect that level of effort. This disconnect made me anticipate lower motivation and higher stress if I accepted the position, which would likely affect my performance and engagement.

I later accepted a different internship that offered a more supportive compensation package, including a housing stipend. Even though the hourly wage difference was small, the added support reduced stress and made the role feel fair and sustainable. As a result, I was more motivated to put in effort and fully engage. This experience reinforced that compensation influences behavior by shaping perceptions of value, fairness, and motivation.

Reflecting on 2 classes I have taken at Oregon State, I will explain my thoughts on why one was effective and why one was not while drawing from the course material for this week.

The class that I found to be very effective was the structures 2 course I took last term. I learned so much valuable information in this class and really connected with the teaching style the professor had. He did a good job of setting goals for the class and making it his priority for us to reach that goal. The main goal of the class being to prepare us for our next class in the segment which was much harder than structures 2, temporary structures. He focused on getting the class to conceptualize the material rather than memorize it and do good on his specific tests. His presentation was also very good, having 3 lectures a week with a recitation kept me engaged and really internalize the material. I also enjoyed the use of Hands-On presentation where he used real 2x4s and 4x4s to show the axial compression on the actual member as well as showing videos of steel members being used and how the force diagrams worked.

On the other hand, My Heavy Civil class was not helpful at all. It had nothing to do with the teacher himself but the way he taught it felt disorganized and cluttered. He used hands on tools like computer programs to show cut/fill diagrams but they just brought more complications to the task, causing the class to focus more on the program and less on the actual material we needed to learn. The class also did not create a great learning environment for me personally. There was 2 lectures a week that were 2 hours long and just dragged on and on with a teacher who seemed to back track on every other topic, second guessing himself and causing confusion amongst my classmates. He could have benefited from measuring the training, class, effectiveness by looking at the classes average scores on HWs and midterms to give some insight as to how the class is taking to the teaching style. Overall, he was a great guy but his training and teaching style did not help me succeed in the topic rather added more challenges that took away from the goal of the class which was to learn about Heavy Civil Construction.

My interview experiences with both the Dutra Group and Build Group helped me better understand how recruiting and selection work together. Week 5 lectures explain that recruiting focuses on finding qualified people while selection involves making a hire or no hire decision based on person job and person organization fit (Wk 5 Lecture 2). 

My interview with the Dutra Group was conducted online with the head of HR and a senior project manager. The questions focused on availability, coursework, strengths, and interest in marine construction. This helped assess person organization fit by exploring my motivation and alignment with the company’s work. However, the interview lacked strong job-related assessment tied to the actual responsibilities of the internship. As discussed in Week 5 Lecture 1, effective recruiting includes a clear recruiting value proposition and job previews. Clearer communication about project rotation and expectations could have improved alignment and reduced confusion once I started. I also could have asked for more detail about these questions although I don’t know if I would’ve gotten an answer that would have worked.

The Build Group interview stood out because it included a problem-solving puzzle that required me to explain my reasoning. This strengthened my person job fit by assessing critical thinking and problem-solving skills relevant to construction work. It also improved validity by looking at how I approached real challenges rather than relying solely on conversational questions which led me to like the company more.

Overall, my experiences showed that aligning recruiting messages with structured selection tools that measure Person job and Person organization fit improves reliability, validity, and long-term hiring success.