What I'm doing on my summer vacation Part 2: Working at a small start up!

I applied for internships at a lot of the big companies. I was rejected by some immediately, never received a response from others, and went through the interview process with a few, only to later be rejected. And, in retrospect, I could not be more grateful that none of these opportunities panned out. Because of my lack of success applying to the bigger companies, I was forced to broaden my search and look for less obvious summer opportunities. My summer job search was completed after I received an email from my mother with an article attached to it. She had come across the story of a company recently started by a Penn systems engineering graduate that was developing a healthcare IT system. After doing research in medically-related fields the past two summers, I have started to imagine myself using my systems engineering degree to try to improve healthcare systems, so this company seemed like a perfect fit. I looked over their website, but there were no internship opportunities or even anything about looking to hire. I reached out anyway, sending an email inquiring about the possibility of interning with them for the summer. After a phone interview and an in-person interview, I was informed that I would get the opportunity to work with the startup this summer. And it has been the coolest experience.

            There are a lot of great things about working at a startup. The company I’m working for has 12 people total. I talk to the CEO/president/co-founder basically every day, both about work and about a mutual interest of ours, sports. I’ve had the CCO text me and I’ve given him a ride to pick up his car from the shop. There technically is a hierarchy, but because it’s a startup, everyone does a little of everything. There was one day when there were 5 or 6 of us crammed into an office stamping envelopes and another when we all took a break from our work to assemble our new desks chairs together. Your stereotypical intern jobs are everyone’s jobs because everything moves so quickly that, as was said on my first day, each person has do to the work of four, including me. The best part about interning for a startup is that I’ve been able to work in all the different areas of the company, such as helping with the entrepreneurial aspects by working on grant applications, working with the marketing team to create training modules, or going through data that the technical team needs for product development. I have truly gotten to see it all, while having a ton of fun along the way.

            Going into the internship search process, I hadn’t really considered looking into startups. But now that I’m 5 weeks into my summer experience, I could not be happier with how everything played out. I guess what I’m trying to say is that finding a summer job can be hard, so don’t be afraid to branch out and look for opportunities off the beaten path or that don’t seem to exist. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up with as great an experience as I’m having as a result.

Questions for Emily?  Contact her at awe@seas.upenn.edu

What I'm Doing On My Summer Vacation: Part I

The first in a three part series, hear about what 3 PENNgineers are doing this summer!  First up, Cathryn is in Germany! 

Guten tag! Hallo, Ich studiere und arbeite in Deutschland. If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry. It didn’t make sense to me a month ago either. Translation: I’m studying and working in Germany. I was fortunate enough to become one of the Ruhr Fellows this summer to represent Penn abroad and learn more about German engineering and business. The Ruhr Fellowship program is a two month program created by the ConRuhr and sponsored by the Initiativkreis Ruhr GmbH (http://international.rub.de/gaststudis/programme/ruhrfellows/index.html.en). All of this basically means that the once coal focused Ruhr region is transitioning to a research and industry region within Germany and wants the top talent to be a part of this industry growth. The Ruhr Fellowship program does just that by engaging engineers from Penn, Princeton, MIT, and Harvard through an academic-cultural experience followed by an internship at the top companies in the region. 

Upon arriving in Germany at the beginning of June, I immediately noticed one key aspect of German culture: efficiency. Naturally engineers fit in well in a country that is driven by finding the most efficient process for everything in life. With some German heritage in my background, I can see the origins of some of my habits in planning and preparing aspects in my life. 

The first month of the program contained the academic-cultural experience which involved company visits, German language classes, cultural seminars, lab visits, and academic discussions. Most of these experiences were something that I will most likely never have the chance to participate in again. How often are you able to go a mile underground in a coal mine elevator shaft, ride a monorail through the underground tunnel system of a coal mine, see the earth falling off before your eyes (with the help of a six ton machine), have 900 tons of earth above your head, and then leave the mine with a piece of coal you found on the ground that was buckling under pressure? Or what about having 200 tons of molten metal pass ten feet in front of you in an oversized bucket so that you could feel the heat through your jacket? Or what about being featured in an article in the largest German tabloid and seeing the printing process from giant roles of paper to delivery on the truck beds? As a bioengineer, most of the company visits were not something that I will be focusing on in the future. However, by learning about these companies and other engineering disciplines in a hands-on manner, I’ve been able to expand my engineering and business knowledge past the boundaries of bioengineering. Through the lab visits and academic discussions, I was able to learn more about the different ways to bend metal with electric current in mechanical engineering or learn about embedded systems from electrical engineering. This broadens my engineering knowledge and will allow me to better understand bioengineering from an interdisciplinary approach. 

After my mine adventure!

Now we have started the second month of the program which involves the internship portion. I’m working at BP in the Global Fuels Technology location in the Quality Assurance and Technical Support team. I started a week ago not being able to tell you the difference between gasoline and diesel and now I can describe most of the Fuels Value Chain of the Rhine Region covering BP’s fuel supply for ten European countries. I’ve been able to use by technical background in engineering to understand the chemistry behind a fuels quality incident or behind the tests performed in the lab while applying the supply chain management I’ve learned in Wharton classes to help optimize solutions to quality incidents. It has already been an incredible learning experience in the first week with a few more weeks to learn even more. 

Even more important than the academic and professional aspects of the program, I’ve been able to learn about and live in a new culture. It’s interesting to compare school systems, grocery stores, and everything in between with the German students we know here in Bochum, Germany. Most things are not drastically different (except Germans always wait for the walk light to appear at a stoplight). Learning about a different culture gives you the opportunity to question your own and question the standards and values that are innate within you just from growing up in the culture.

This has been a small taste of study abroad combining engineering and business with currywursts and pretzels into an epic summer adventure. 

*****

Next up, Emily talks about interning at a local start-up.  Check back next week for her story!

Everything I needed to know about Penn Engineering I learned from AWE Pre-Orientation

Everything I needed to know about Penn Engineering I learned from AWE Pre-Orientation. Within that short period of time I met over half my class of fellow female engineers, found incredible role-models in the upperclassmen volunteers, attained valuable advice to help me in my classes throughout the year, and was given the opportunity to acclimate myself to my dorm, campus, and the city of Philadelphia well before my peers. 

I was so worried that when I came to campus I wouldn’t know anyone, I wouldn’t know my way around, and would just be a hot mess of awful. When I got to Pre-Orientation, I realized everyone felt the same way I did. And that was a comfort. Also, coincidentally a great common ground on which to build friendships. I look back on the pictures from Pre-Orientation, where I met so many people, and did so many things, and I’m amazed at how many pictures I can point to and say, “Oh, we have this class together,” or “Oh, I’m hanging out with her later this week.” The girls you meet at Pre-Orientation, really will become some of your best friends, study buddies, note takers in class when you’re sick, partners for group projects, hall mates, or even members of the same extracurricular activities you’re involved in. Coming from a place where I knew no one coming to Penn with me, I cannot stress enough how important and comforting it was to be able to walk into the first day of class and recognize most girls, and have friends to sit next to. 

Trolley tour of Philly!

The upperclassmen who volunteer to help with Pre-Orientation are girls who thoroughly enjoyed their time participating their freshman year, have done exceptionally well in their time at Penn, and are personable and willing to help anyone. They showed us around DRL (the most notoriously confusing building to navigate) and answered any questions we had, no matter how sheepishly we asked them, or (in retrospect) how silly they might have been, because they know we genuinely were concerned, and their answers always calmed our nerves. I remember the volunteers giving us free reign to ask any and all questions we had, and promising to give us the straight-up answer we were looking for, not necessarily the ones  they were supposed to say. They gave us invaluable advice about classes (particularly Chem 101 for engineers), how to best stay on top of the work and get help if you need it, and where the best places to study are. Throughout my freshman year, I’ve stayed in contact with many of my Pre-Orientation volunteers and they’ve helped me countless times. It’s so good to have an older friend in engineering, who can relate to what you’re going through, has been through it successfully before, and can help you out if you’re having a tough time. 

One of the things you’ll hear often when you get to Penn is, “Don’t get yourself trapped in the Penn Bubble.” Many people are so comfortable on campus, make excuses like they have too much work (okay, just kidding that one may be legitimate), that they never make time to get off campus and explore the AMAZING city of Philadelphia that is literally a 10-15 minute walk from the Engineering Quad (let’s face it, you’re there all the time anyways, you might as well take a break!). AWE Pre-Orientation has you do extremely fun activities around campus and around the city to help acclimate you more to your new surroundings, and that includes taking you out of the Penn Bubble. My year we took a trolley ride around to see the city, went to a Phillies game, toured Reading Terminal Market, and even one night split up with different volunteers and went to dinner in center city with a smaller group of girls. 

There are so many fun things to do at Penn and in Philly that AWE Pre-Orientation couldn’t possibly cover it all. It does, however, give you a great taste of what is to come in your freshman year ahead, and leaves the rest of the exploring up to you. Take advantage of every moment you get at Pre-Orientation, it was by far one of the best parts of my freshman year experience. 

Questions for Alexis?  Contact her at awe@seas.upenn.edu

Penn Bucket List

With graduation quickly approaching, it's time for Seniors to reflect on all the extraordinary accomplished they've made over the past four years and to use the last few weeks leading up to graduation to check those last couple things off their Penn Bucket List. While this Bucket List is surely to vary based off of the individual's interests, involvements, and goals, Advancing Women in Engineering has compiled a brief Penn Bucket List as a starting point.

1. Get involved with research that could change the world
2. Make a friend from every continent (except perhaps Antarctica)
3. Go to Reading Terminal Market
4. Invent and design an innovative product
5. Don a Fling tank or several for each of your Student Groups
6. Take a bite of your Styrofoam hat at Hey Day
7. Explore Philadelphia 
8. Go to a Professional Sports Game: Phillies, Flyers, Eagles, 76er's (your choice)
9. Have a favorite food cart and have the owner know your name/order
10. Join student organizations that you are passionate about
11. Be a leader in at least one of your organizations
12. Go watch a famous person speak at Penn
13. Be mentored by a professor who inspires you
14. Give back to the community 
15. Perfect your resume
16. Eat a cheese-steak from Pats or Gino's or Jim's or Tony Luke's
17. Run up the stairs of the Penn Museum like you're Rocky
18. Get floor passes to a Fling concert
19. Throw toast at a football game
20. Make life-long friends

AWE Alumni Panel

Left to Right: Panel coordinator, Hilary Grosskopf, Jeanine Gubler Heck, Janelle Johnson, Sydney Kestle, Allison Rozsits, and panel coordinator, Sophia Stylianos.

On March 27, 2013, AWE hosted an Alumni Panel for undergrads in Heilmeier Hall. Four female SEAS grads returned to campus to give advice covering topics for freshmen such as "What does it actually mean to be an engineer?" to questions for seniors like "How did Penn prepare you for your first year in the 'real world'?" or "How do you apply what you learned at Penn to your specific job?"

            The panel was made up of Jeanine Gubler Heck, CIS ’99, Janelle Johnson, CBE ’08, Sydney Kestle, BE ’11, and Allison Rozsits, BE ’12. Jeanine is currently a Senior Director in the Technology + Product group at Comcast. She has been there for 6 years, and is responsible for product efforts related to content discovery. In this role, Jeanine has led the creation of a voice recognition capability that lets customers control their TV’s through voice commands. She has also launched a cloud-enabled TV search engine, and built the company’s first TV recommendations engine. At Penn, Jeanine was involved with SWE and was also captain of the cheerleading team. After graduating from Penn, Jeanine moved to New York and worked at Gemini Systems, an IT consulting company, providing solutions to financial services organizations. After six years there, she enrolled full-time at Columbia Business School, receiving her MBA in 2007.

            Since graduation, Janelle has been employed at Philadelphia Gas Works. She originally worked in the Chemical Services Department as a Chemist until to 2012.  Currently, she works in Gas Processing Department as a Senior Staff Engineer.  She is also a part-time graduate student at Villanova University majoring in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering and will graduate in May 2013. At Penn, Janelle was involved with the National Society of Black Engineers and the Penn Band.

            After graduating from Penn, Sydney returned to her hometown of Washington DC, and is currently a second year law student at American University, Washington College of Law. After her first year, she interned with Judge Jimmie V. Reyna of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. While at the Fed Circuit, she had the opportunity to work on patent specific cases, as well as cases brought under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. In a few months, Sydney will be a summer associate at the intellectual property firm, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garret & Dunner LLP. Specifically, I will be working in the mechanical practice group. While at Penn, Sydney worked in a tissue engineering and biomechanics lab, and was a member of Chi Omega and SWE. 

Since graduation, Allison has been working as a Product Development Engineer Associate at DePuy Synthes (a Johnson & Johnson company) in West Chester, PA. She is currently in a rotational engineering program there and has been working in product development, but will be moving to a manufacturing role in June, and will continue on to other job functions across varying geographical sites for the next 2 to 3 years. While at Penn, she was a member of AOE engineering sorority, Club Swimming, and BMES.

The panelists all offered a unique background and perspective on the field of engineering. At the end of the panel, each woman offered a take-away piece of advice. Jeanine offered a piece of advice that Billy Joel shared when he spoke to her class during her time at Penn: follow your dreams. Even if you can’t achieve them right away, know what your dreams are and make sure you’re getting there! Janelle stressed the importance of networking. In the professional sense, be sure to always reach out to people for opportunities. Additionally, as a professional engineer, she advised everyone to support each other and reminded us that we can’t do it on our own. Sydney wanted everyone to remember that your job does not define you– be sure to keep pursuing hobbies. Make sure you have an outlet so you don’t get too caught up in your job. Allison told the women in the audience to “make yourself; don’t find yourself.” Be active, not passive in your professional pursuits.

AWE hopes to continue this tradition and host an alumni panel with SEAS alum from different engineering fields annually!