Internship Blog 1: Job and GIS User Groups

For my internship credit this semester, I will be counting the GIS work I do as part of my new job as an Engineering Technician in the Sidewalks division of the City of Richmond Department of Public Works. A major part of my job is conducting site visits of sidewalks that need repair and evaluating what degree of repair is needed and the level of priority given its condition and external factors such as surrounding land use and pedestrian volume. I will be designing plans for full-block sidewalk repair projects and identifying project specifications based on the existing sidewalk, landscaping, utilities, and environmental constraints, and the desired improvements based on citizen safety, ADA and city standards, historical preservation, and project feasibility. I will be drawing up these designs in ArcGIS Pro overlaid on city parcel maps so the contractors have a visual guideline to go along with the cost estimates I will create. I'm excited about this job because I am a big fan of sidewalks and want to help make Richmond's sidewalks as safe and pedestrian-friendly as possible!

As I get more comfortable with the job, my supervisor plans for me to help with more GIS-related projects such as updating an ArcGIS Online map of all the blocks of sidewalk we've repaired so citizens can see our progress, and a future LIDAR survey of every sidewalk in the city to give us complete, accurate data about where the most uneven and dangerous sidewalks are. I'm excited to explore how I can bring even more GIS into my work with the city!

For one of our assignments this week, we had to find a local GIS user group. I found VAMLIS (Virginia Association for Mapping and Land Information Systems) (https://www.vamlis.org), which aims to provide educational and networking opportunities to professionals in the mapping sciences in Virginia. It covers a range of industries, including GIS, cartography, engineering, surveying, and photogrammetry. The list of members includes people from various corporations, universities, and city, county, and state government organizations, so it encompasses many different industries and applications. They have a yearly conference that is scheduled for November of this year, which would be interesting to attend.

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