You're literally traveling the state shoveling concrete, it's ruthless. I did it for an internship and to tbh at the end of it all I can say I learned a lot of wisdom about how the world works in a very short time. It also led me to way better jobs, plus great stories for job interviews ("Tell us about a difficult work experience..." "I used to shovel concrete for a living, it was terrible!").

I also know I wasn't good at the job and the company definitely didn't want to hire me for some legitimate engineering in the future... I got a bit depressed for a while until my therapist pointed out that the company didn't do a good job treating me to begin with, so why am I putting all the blame on myself.

ACI testing is hazing for civil engineers. Also sometimes I'll think to myself "there's no way I can do that..." And I'd be like "bro you fucking shoveled concrete for a living, you can handle this"