- Major: Industrial & Systems Engineering
- Company: Schaeffler Group, Hennessy Industries, PepsiCo
- Graduation Year: May 2022
- E-mail: ohayes@vols.utk.edu
Profile
Charlotte, NC
I have had a unique student work experience. I got the opportunity to co-op and intern for three different companies. I did my first internship with Shaeffler Group, USA in Fort Mill, South Carolina in the summer of 2019. I worked on a special project to find the root causes of downtime on machines manufacturing a valve for General Motors. I then got a co-op with Hennessy Industries in La Vergne, Tennessee in the spring of 2020. Hennessy makes tire changers, wheel balancers and brake lathes. I was an Operations Co-op working on facilities design and changing the process from batch to single-piece flow. Lastly, this summer, I was a Supply Chain and Engineering Intern with PepsiCo at their Frito-Lay headquarters in Plano, Texas, where I worked on an eCommerce Supply Chain project mapping the life of an eComm purchase order.
I decided to co-op because I thought it was important to have critical work experience; to be able to apply what I learned in classes to real world situations before I was thrown into the real world after college.
The biggest lesson I learned in all of my experiences is communication. In school, projects are very singular in that they are typically just for one part of one class. With industry and work, however, projects are cross-functional across systems and teams, and communication is extremely important.
Participating in these professional practice assignments has prepared me with extremely important soft skills, to be able to manage my professional and academic relationships, and to be able to work well with the people on my teams and other teams. If you have the opportunity to co-op or intern- do it. It has been extremely helpful to me to have different experiences before I have to accept a job offer, because I've been able to see what I like and don't like, and what I want to do after college. Also, having a relationship with a company from a co-op or internship can often lead to a full-time offer.
In addition to academics, I am on the UT Equestrian Team, where I will be serving as Vice President this year. I also love to snow ski, hike and bake and do whatever I can to spend time with friends.
Pro tip: When you are interviewing, be yourself. I promise you they don't want to hear a cookie cutter answer, they want to hear what you think. If they wanted the cookie cutter answer, there would be no need to hire you.
