Rocscience Intern Program: From Student to Engineer
Since its inception, Rocscience has always been a company with deep roots in the academic world. It began back in 1987, as the Rock Engineering Group at the University Toronto began developing and distributing 2D and 3D geomechanics software for the mining and civil engineering industries. Led by Dr. Evert Hoek and Dr. John Curran, the first suite of programs was created from work by various graduate students, including Rocscience’s current CEO and President, Dr. Thamer Yacoub, and the current CTO, Dr. Brent Corkum.
As the demand for the software continued to grow, the company now known as Rocscience was formed in 1996 to help handle the distribution of the software around the world. It has been over 20 years since then, and while Rocscience has grown and evolved greatly in this time, the company continues to maintain its connection to the world of academics and research. Two of the big ways Rocscience helps to maintain that connection is through the Rocscience Academic Bundle and the company’s nearly 20 year old intern program.
Academic Bundle
The Rocscience Academic Bundle is a subscription service that gives instructors and their students access to Rocscience’s full suite of 2D and 3D geotechnical software. For only a small fraction of the software’s commercial cost, universities get access to some of the most cutting edge geotechnical programs currently being used in today’s mining and civil engineering industries. Through this, students get to graduate with experience and a working knowledge of the programs they will need to use in their careers to follow.
A subscription to the bundle includes more than just the Rocscience software suite though. To ensure students truly stay ahead of the curve, the bundle includes regular feature updates, so that as new technologies develop in geomechanics, students get access to these advancements as well. If that weren’t enough either, Rocscience has also adapted the bundle this year to support universities through the changing learning environment caused by Covid-19. In order to help adapt to the new online learning environment, the Rocscience Academic Bundle includes 19 complimentary Education Individual Licenses (EILs) to graduate students and faculty members with each subscription so institutions can more easily maintain their social distancing requirements.
Internship Program
Rocscience doesn’t just support students through its software though. As mentioned before, Rocscience maintains a robust internship program with new students joining the company each semester. These geotechnical interns get to work directly with our engineers, learning from and being mentored by some of the best experts in geotechnical software. In turn, the students contribute their fresh perspectives and academic talents towards the engineering software development process. This symbiotic relationship is one that benefits Rocscience as much as it does the students, and is why the program has continued to grow and flourish over the past 20 years. In fact, some of the students enjoyed their time at Rocscience so much that they even returned to work at Rocscience full time after finishing their degree. This includes current software developers Ellen Yeh and Luke Oulahen, Project lead Owen Westland and many more.
The most recent group of interns included 13 students who got to work on a variety of Rocscience’s 2D and 3D programs including RS2 and RS3, two of the company’s most powerful and popular software. To know more about their experience with Rocscience, visit our internship page.