During my 3 rotation with Draexlmaier’s Process Engineering department, I got to work on countless projects using skills I learned in the classroom, skills my mentor and team taught me, and skills I taught myself. One of my favorite projects during my final rotation was a process improvement to a door panel part nest. One of the engineers on my team, several engineering technicians, and all the operators at the station worked with me to identify the root cause of failed door panels, ideate simple solutions, implement our change, and validate the improvement. We ended up installing a small pin to the nest which effectively eliminated the issue on the door panel variant. It was fun to work with such a diverse team and come up with such a simple, small fix that had a major impact. Seeing my projects have legitimate, positive impacts on the assembly lines and operators’ working conditions was incredibly fulfilling.

My favorite thing about the co-op was my mentor and the engineers I worked with most frequently. They wanted me to learn and get involved with as many projects and process as possible, so I was put to work every single day. As someone who likes to stay busy, I appreciated that my mentor had a seemingly endless list of tasks and projects — big and small — that he’d pass on to me to tackle. Completing 3 rotations gave me an opportunity to form meaningful relationships with the team and build trust with the engineers. So, by the end of my time at Draexlmaier, I had an opportunity to be my mentor’s proxy for a few weeks in which I troubleshooted and improved new, pre-series launch processes!

Early next year, I will be joining Honda R&D with the Frame Development Business Unit where I will an Upperbody Design Engineer. Draexlmaier exposed me to the automotive manufacturing world, which I had never considered or thought a possible route for my career. While Process Engineering is quite different from Design Engineering, the parts I will get to help design will be relying heavily on existing manufacturing processes and the capabilities of mass production. I know my co-op experience will help me in my career in several ways. I fell into automotive manufacturing by chance and quickly came to love it, and I’m so grateful I had an opportunity to complete my co-op with Draexlmaier for the lifelong connections, friends, and experiences.