Junior mechanical engineering major Julia Alspaugh spent her second summer in a row working at Michelin in Greensboro, S.C. In addition to getting to live in and experience a new city, she's gained valuable work experience.
"I worked in one of the tire plants doing designing modifications that will help improve production quality and speed," Alspaugh said. "I actually put the engineering skills I've learned to use in the real world. I still don't know what I want to do after college, but having a summer job has helped me figure out what some of my options are."
With the economy and job market struggling, summer internships really help Virginia Tech students to get their collective foot in the door.
While some students focused on valuable work experience, others have narrowed in on research opportunities. The National Science Foundation sponsors several research projects around the country to support undergraduates for the summer in the Research Experience for Undergraduates program.
According to the NSF's Web site, "The REU program supports active research participation by undergraduate students."
Junior civil engineering major Elaine Huffman participated in an REU this summer at The University of Notre Dame. The focus of the project was to analyze structures, water systems and geologic conditions following natural disasters. Huffman's project was to research the structural integrity of schools in natural disasters.
"Not only did I get valuable research experience, but I got to study something that is important," Huffman said.
The group at the Notre Dame site is currently doing field work in Thailand and Indonesia as a part of its experience.
"Getting to see firsthand the effects of the tsunami has really put the research into perspective. It has been an awesome experience," Huffman said.
Mallory Brangan also participated in an NSF funded REU. As a junior biochemistry major, she is interested in infectious disease, and her study took place at Indiana University-Bloomington.
"For 10 weeks, I worked in an actual lab, doing actual science. It was awesome," Brangan said. "We fluorescently localized a putative peptidoglycan hydrolase protein in the gram positive bacteria Streptococcus pneumonia," Brangan explained.
For those of us who have no idea what that means, she clarified: "I fused a protein that glows to a protein that we think might maintain the cell wall. If successful, which we don't know yet, the location of the protein of interest will be seen with a fluorescent microscope at different stages in cellular division."
Brangan found her experience very rewarding. When she finishes at Tech, she hopes to continue her studies in biochemistry.
"I really love science and studying disease. I would not trade my experience this summer for anything," Brangan said.
If you aren't already impressed with what Virginia Tech students are doing with their summers, you need to meet senior Alek Duerksoe. Duerksen has majors in mining and minerals engineering with minors in creative writing and geology. He spent his summer getting work experience for a company that makes mining equipment in Chile as a part of a scholarship.
Duerksen was very deliberate about his choice to study in Chile.
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