THON 2012 - A reflection by Matt Krott (Junior, Mechanical Engineering)

Everyone who has seen the movie “Miracle” or watched a clip of the final seconds of America’s victory over the Soviet Union in 1980 knows the famous words of Al Michaels - words that evoke an incredibly powerful reaction, sending chills up and down one’s body as you hear the sheer excitement and passion in his voice. Those who watched it live will probably never forget the emotions running through their head as he exuberantly yelled into the mic:

“DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES – YES!”

I can certainly say that the words of overall chairperson and bioengineering student Elaine Tanella as she shouted the THON 2012 total will have a similar effect on me:

“TEN MILLION – “

I didn’t even hear the rest, because as soon as I saw the zero and the one I started jumping around with the rest of the Bryce Jordan Center and screaming at the top of my lungs. I screamed for probably solid 60 seconds, and then I stopped and took a moment to appreciate the incredible number in front of me.

$10,686,924.83. Wow.

As the communications chair for Springfield, a special interest organization benefiting THON, I spent all year helping lead our group’s fundraising efforts through canning, raffles, and solicitations. We are one of the hundreds of organizations that raise money all year long and send dancers to the floor for the 46-hour marathon in February. But looking around the BJC shows you that for this weekend, all of the organizations come together and make a stand – literally - in the fight against pediatric cancer.

It is a weekend where a bunch of college students get to act like kids again. It is a weekend full of tears of sadness and tears of joy. It teaches lessons that you can’t pick up in your thermo book or from your physics professor. It is breathtaking, surreal, unbelievable, and every other word you use to describe something when you can’t find the right word, but one thing is for sure.

It is Penn State.

Tips For Securing an Interview - Ryan Patrick: Junior, Mechanical Engineering

One of the busiest and arguably most important weeks in a Penn State engineering student’s semester is Career Week.  It starts with meeting recruiters and creating relationships, and hopefully ends with an interview and subsequent job offer.  At first glance, the entire process that you have to go through in order to secure this interview may seem extremely daunting.  However, there is nothing to fear. I believe that after my three years of experience with Career Week, I have come up with an easy to follow guide on how to put yourself in the best position to be interviewing for your dream employment opportunity!  

This guide is broken down into sections centered on three main things:

• eCareer and Career Fair Website
• The Engineering Networking Reception
• The Career Fair itself

The first part of your climb to successfully landing a job offer is to effectively use eCareer and the Career Fair Website.  If you are a prospective Penn State student, you may not know about these great resources.  eCareer is the Engineering Career Resources and Employer Relations website that allows for potential employers to post job descriptions for all Penn State engineering students to see.  The Career Website is just as important because it provides a list of all companies that will be present at the Career Fair.  My tip to you is to use both eCareer and the Career Week website to their maximum potentials!  It is an invaluable resource that can help you find what types of jobs and companies interest you and will give you a better idea of what you want to pursue during Career Week.

Once you’ve explored the Internet a little bit, you will begin to have a good idea of what you’re looking for.  Now comes the next step – the Networking Reception.  I believe this is the most important event because it gives you a chance to informally meet recruiters for the companies that you are hoping to work.  Some tips for this event:

• Scout out the companies you want to target
• Be prepared to wait in line – use this time wisely to read up on the company and calm your nerves by breathing in and out nice and slow
• This event is all about establishing a connection with a recruiter so that the next day, at the Career Fair, you can walk right back up to them and continue the conversation so make sure you focus on making a great first impression and the next day should be much easier for you!

Last but certainly not least, the Career Fair.  This is when everything will come together for you!  Make it a point to touch base with the recruiters you have already talked to, no matter how long the line is.   When you finally do get to talk to them again, make sure they remember you from the night before and then proceed to pick up your conversation like it never stopped.  
This plan of action has worked for me every year, and while our experiences may not be exactly alike I still think that you will achieve success if you take some of my advice.  Job hunting should be a fun and challenging experience, so make sure you enjoy every second of it!

Good luck!

Job Search Experience: Meghan Fisher (Senior, Mechanical Engineering)

I thought that choosing a college was the hardest decision of my life until it came to choosing my first full time job! As sad as it is, unfortunately every college experience must come to end and every student must choose their next path.  Some students choose to remain in the world of academia or go to some sort of graduate school, but I personally wanted to take my mechanical engineering degree and enter industry. Although I knew I wanted to go into industry, the process of interviewing and choosing a job/company was an extremely difficult decision.

My professional experience began with two engineering internships, one with Georgia Pacific-Dixie and the other with ConocoPhillips. These two opportunities were completely different.  As a Mechanical Design intern, my experience with Dixie was heavily engineering based and involved intensive machine design. On the opposite end of the spectrum, with ConocoPhillips my role was business based and revolved around finding ways to optimize the lubricants department supply chain. 

I received my first full time job offer in August with ConocoPhillips in Houston, Texas which paid an outrageous sum of money. My summer at ConocoPhillips was filled with wonderful people who I could easily have seen myself working with.  However, I was extremely hesitant with the particular lack of job diversity and the ability to change locations. Since I was not completely sure of what I wanted to do, and did not want to concede to only living in Houston (which is where I would have ended up short and long term), I decided to turn down the offer.

I was very successful at the Penn State Career fair which resulted in 9 interviews, 4 turned down onsites, and 3 full time offers. In the end I chose Dow Chemical.  I chose the specific company because it had many of the things that I wanted.  I think that I want to go into management someday, but have always been told that starting technical will help gain respect of the people that are being managed.  I want to have the opportunity to change technical jobs often and experience different things if I want to within the company. Having flexibility within location was also a large factor.  Although I like Texas, which is where I have accepted my full time offer with Dow, I have the option to move to locations throughout the US if I so desire. Additionally, the people and the goals of the company aligned well with my personal beliefs. 

All in all, choosing a career was a very difficult decision.  However, it is easiest if it is broken down by deciding which things are most important to you.  Once one determines what they want to get out of the post college life, it makes the decision much simpler. 

Job Search Experience: Rachel Lower - Biological Engineering

Although I’m still in denial that in four short months I will be leaving the Happy Valley I’ve come to know and love in the past 4 years, I realize that the day will come when I must move on to the real world. I started preparing for this day last fall, when I began my full time job search. For me, the exciting and sometimes stressful process all started at Penn State’s Fall career fair. I talked to numerous recruiters at various companies discussing their opportunities as well as my experience and interests.

I had several first round interviews, either from talking to a recruiter at the career fair or applying online. These interviews ranged from 30 to 45 minutes consisted of mostly general questions about my experiences and interests, similar to an interview for an internship. After these interviews, I only had success with Kimberly Clark and Epic. It was disappointing getting turned down, but I kept my head up because I had other opportunities and it was still early in the search process. I was asked to travel to KC’s site in Neenah, WI (about 30 minutes south of Green Bay), all expenses covered, and a month later to Epic in Madison, WI.

I felt so independent and grown up as I flew by myself for the first time, on the way to interview for a full time job. My first impressions were that the Midwest is much different from Philly suburbs and it would be a big change for me living in small-town Wisconsin.

At KC, I had a full day of interviewing, consisting of 5 hour long interviews with different Research & Engineering employees, each having a unique experience with KC. The interview questions all used the STAR technique, so my answers had to discuss my personal experience working in teams, encountering problems, creative thinking and other questions such as name a time you satisfied a customer’s needs. I loved the atmosphere at KC and all the people I met.

I had a slightly different experience at Epic. Their interview process consisted of a phone interview and a math and logic test before they flew me first class to Madison. I was already impressed before I arrived on site! I heard that their campus was impressive, but I didn’t know what to expect. I was lead on a walking tour of several buildings of their 800 acre campus, and couldn’t believe this was actually a place where people worked. The same architects as Microsoft and Disney World designed the buildings - it definitely felt like I could be in Disney World. We even went down a slide as part of our tour! The interview process was less stressful than at Kimberly Clark, I spoke with a Technical Services employee (the position I was applying for) and had 1 interview dealing with prioritizing daily tasks. I wasn’t sure I wanted to work with computer programming, but I have always enjoyed computers and the position involved customer service. I know I want a job working closely with customers, so I could see myself at Epic also.

I was lucky to receive 2 offers, but it is a stressful and almost life-changing decision. I had two totally different job descriptions with similar compensation and location. When looking at the two companies, KC is a big corporation and Epic is a smaller but quickly growing company. However, I knew from the beginning of my job search that I really want a job working in Healthcare. Because that was the most important to me, I turned down my offer with KC. When thinking about deciding where to work, I think things like location and compensation are important, but it is most important to me that I will like what I’m doing and feel that I’m making a difference each day simply by going to work.

Welcome Back!

Hello there! We hope you all had a relaxing and joyful holiday season. As we Engineering Ambassadors get geared up for the coming semester, keep your eye out for our upcoming posts! Best wishes for a great 2012!

Happy Holidays!

The Penn State Engineering Ambassadors wish you and yours a happy and relaxing holiday season. We have a lot in store for you for next semester, so stay tuned!

Major Focus: Anna Rish - Computer Science

I like to say that computer science is hands-down the most unique engineering major. I never say that it is harder or easier than other engineering majors, because it is incomparable. If you want to manipulate tiny changes in voltage that only last microseconds to make awesome, indescribable stuff happen, computer science is for you. If you want to work with your hands? Maybe not so much.

The story of how I got involved in computer science is a long story – see previous blog post at http://psuengineeringambassadors.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-did-you-choose-your-major-anna-rish.html. Basically, I had no idea what I wanted to do and fate might have stepped in a little to point me in the right direction. I have always loved math (true story: I used to be a mathlete) and really wanted to pursue something similar in college. Computer science has a lot of the aspects that I like about math, like critical thinking, problem-solving using algorithms, and dependability. One of my favorite things about math is that it doesn’t change – two plus two is always four – and it’s either right or wrong, with no grey areas. Computer science is the same. Your program behaves deterministically (usually…), and it works, or it doesn’t. A lot of time it doesn’t. But if computer science is right for you, seeing it work will be worth it. I think that is basically what it comes down to – whether or not the sometimes large amount of painstaking detail-oriented work is worth it to you. It is to me.

Computer science at Penn State has two main subject areas – programming/systems and theory. Every freshman starts out by taking a four-course programming sequence that covers C++, Java, and C. Other classes that I associate with programming are things like operating systems and computer & network security. These classes aren’t focused on learning a specific language, but they do introduce various implementations of systems and often include programming projects to help build your proficiency. The second set of courses that a computer science major takes at Penn State is the theory classes. These classes include discrete math, data structures & algorithms, theory of computation, and programming language concepts. These classes focus on the mathematical basis of the field and often involve writing proofs of various theorems. These classes are essential to building your understanding of how various programming concepts work.

Another reason that I love computer science is that there are jobs available in every field imaginable. This is especially true in today’s world, where every company needs a website and storage, and every industry is starting to incorporate computers and technology. Companies like Boeing are just as interested in hiring computer science majors as they are Aerospace Engineers. The possibilities are literally endless, and they are expanding every day. I also enjoy learning about new technologies – computer science is a new field, and it is growing fast. I like this, because I know that I will not be working with the same technology for 40 years once I enter the workforce.

If there is anything else I can do to convince you that computer science is an awesome major, or if you have any questions, please feel free to email me at acr5136@psu.edu. I would love to share more information with you!