For my STEP project I completed a 11-week internship with Cleveland Cliffs, a flat coil steel manufacturer, in East Chicago, Indiana. I worked with the quality assurance team, so my main tasks involved identifying and containing defects, analyzing data regarding reprocessed and rejected coils, as well as resetting the calibration standards for the manufacturing plant’s magnetic properties testing equipment. I worked with a lot of different types of people and engineers within the team on different projects.
This experience helped me learn a lot more about myself as a professional and what I want out of a future career. I thoroughly enjoyed the job that I was working, the people that I was working with, and the work that I was given helped me see that I want variety out of my future jobs. I was not working on the same project all summer and many of my tasks would pop up based on the way that production was going. I found that different types of work and projects was fulfilling and kept me focused and mentally engaged. I also found that I enjoyed my work consisting of a mixture of utilizing both my technical metallurgy background and knowledge and general problem-solving skills. Other positions within the materials science background may only involve the use of technical knowledge, but in the manufacturing industry sometimes the projects solely require the use of problem-solving skills to fix an issue within the mill processes. I also felt more confident in myself as a professional because I felt like I fit in with the work I was doing and the team I was on and was able to produce good work on the tasks I was assigned.
Throughout my STEP experience I had a great supervisor who kept me involved in his own work
during the summer and led to me getting an immersive experience within a manufacturing career. Working with him I was able to ask plenty of questions and gain a full understanding of the responsibilities of being a quality assurance engineer particularly with Cleveland Cliffs. I also feel confident that I would fit in well in a manufacturing setting and in steelmaking as well because I feel like I completely know what to expect out of a career with Cleveland Cliffs specifically, but the tasks I would be given in other manufacturing environments as well.
At the end of the internship, I was interviewed by professionals in different sub-sections of the company (Quality assurance, sales, steelmaking). This was a 3-hour interview which involved speaking with each of the three interviewers for one hour each. This experience really boosted my confidence as a professional who is nearing the time of applying for jobs an choosing a career path. I gained valuable interview experience, felt more comfortable speaking about myself and explaining the past work I have done, and learned more about some of the other roles in the company that I didn’t get to see much of. I also received an offer resulting from my work this summer and the interview.
Near the end of the internship, I presented a summary of my summer experience and some of the main projects I had worked on to some of the higher up managers within the company. Completing a successful presentation and seemingly having the audience intrigued and involved boosted my confidence about my ability to succeed in my field and my presentation skills. I received a good number of questions from the audience but came prepared and thought I did a good job at fully explaining the impact I made on myself and the company throughout this experience. Presenting to higher up managers made the presentation seem to have high stakes and receiving positive feedback showed me I was capable in my field as a professional.
Gaining confidence in myself and experiencing a manufacturing setting within my college major was extremely beneficial to me as a professional. I have one more semester before I will have to choose my future job and this experience helped show me things I am looing for in my career. It is also extremely nice to have an offer on the table as I go through the job search process. Working with some of the people on my team and asking questions gave me a better idea of how I want my career progression to look like within the company that I eventually work for and they highlighted some of the things that I do well and qualities that would make me a good fit in certain company roles. From this experience I have also found that I think I would like to pursue a managerial role at some point within my career because I believe I do a good job at working with many different types of peoples and personalities.
