Penn State Engineering Meets The Happiest Place On Earth (Kylie Sheplock, Senior, Biological Engineering)

Over this past Spring Break I took a trip to the happiest place on earth, Disney World in Orlando, FL! It was my first time EVER going there and it was very overwhelming at first.  However, one reason I was excited about going to Disney was because of all the influence that Penn State engineers have had there.  If you have ever been to Disney I am sure that you have used the "fast past system."  This system made my life so much easier since I didn't have to wait in any long lines for the roller coasters!  What makes the fast pass even greater is that Penn State Industrial Engineers helped develop that process. Also, Penn State IE CO-OP's helped develop the "Magical Express Transportation" which transports your luggage from the airport to your hotel!  It is amazing how much Penn State Engineering students have influenced Disney World.  There are also numerous students from both mechanical and industrial engineering that have participated in both the College-program and professional program at Disney, so you are bound to run into at least one of them there. After all, it is where dreams come true.      

Succeeding in Math and Science (Shane Haydt, Junior, Mechanical Engineering)

Math and science are often mistakenly attributed as the bulk of engineering work.  Conventional wisdom states that if you are good at math and science, you will be good at engineering, but if you struggle with those classes, your dreams of being an engineer are hopeless.  This just isn’t true.  Above all else, engineers need to be able to think creatively and logically to solve all different kinds of problems.  Imagination is just as important, if not more important, than calculus.

That being said….you’re going to have to do some math and science.

Luckily at Penn State, there are a multitude of resources to help you out!  There are your professor’s office hours, your teaching assistant’s office hours, review sessions, math tutoring, and this blog post!  I’ve worked as a math tutor for the past two years, mainly tutoring calculus, and I’ve picked up on some tips to help freshman engineers succeed at math and science.

1. Browse through the book before or after class so you can pick out important formulas or concepts that your professor will cover in class.  This makes it easier to follow along with example problems.
2. Keep track of all of the equations that you learn on a special equation sheet.  This makes homework and studying so much easier!
3. When doing homework, try every single problem.  Even if you’re not grasping the over-arching concept for that assignment, you should still attempt each problem so that you have questions ready if you go to tutoring or office hours.
4.  Take a very regimented approach to your homework.  Do it step by step, write each step down, and do not skip any steps.  For example, if you’re trying to figure out an integral and think it’s impossible, try every single method of integration that you know.  It has to be one of them!
5. Something that helps a lot with homework is to space out your work and make it very legible.  The biggest mistake I made when I was a freshman was that I tried to fit my entire homework assignment on one piece of paper.   This just makes your work a jumbled, confusing mess, and neither you nor your teacher will be able to understand it.
6. Once you’ve tried everything on a problem and still can’t get it, go to one of the three math tutoring centers on campus (completely free for students!) and they can help you out.  Once you leave, try to do it again to see if you followed what the tutor did.
7. Study with a friend.  Explaining a concept to someone else helps exponentially in your understanding of it!
8. On exams and quizzes, take your time and avoid easy mistakes.  The most common problem that students have on calculus exams is mistakes in algebra!  You can prevent this by not skipping steps and writing down everything.
9. If an exam doesn’t go too well, that’s alright!  There are a lot of opportunities to bring up your grade in math and physics classes!  Make sure you come to a tutoring center or office hours right away when you get your test back so you can review it and see where you made mistakes.

The biggest thing to remember is that there is always help available!  Taking these classes with your friends or roommates makes it much easier and much more fun.  Also, definitely take advantage of the free tutoring offered on campus, as well as the exam reviews held by your professor.  If you put your mind to it, you can easily succeed in math and science at Penn State!!

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!