Over the course of the past 4 months, I completed my STEP signature project by participating in an internship/Co-Op at the 3D printer manufacturer Formlabs in Boston. At Formlabs, I was working on the Mechanical Engineering R&D team to develop the next generation of SLS 3D printers. While the role was labeled as “Mechanical Engineering,” I wore many hats, from software to sales, to engineering. As my project’s focus was on helping me decide between graduate school or industry after graduation, this was the best possible scenario. I got in-depth experience in these 3 areas and was able to very quickly tell where my passion lies, giving me the confidence to answer my STEP project’s initial question: industry.
Working at Formlabs for the semester, I discovered that I am a person who needs constant stimulation and can work well under pressure. I like to work on a task, get it reviewed/approved, and then keep moving towards the goal in the most efficient way possible for hours on end. I had initially assumed, and quite foolishly so, that companies (and industry) tended to be less dynamic than a university setting simply because they had an established brand, a line of products, and a bottom line they needed to maintain. Formlabs taught me that this generalization, while true in some circumstances, is not the case for companies where I would be interested in establishing a career. Everyone at Formlabs, especially the engineering team, shared the same drive that I spoke of earlier and embraced our tight deadlines. There were many days when we would work for 14 hours and have a pile of real, meaningful work to show for it; it was an intoxicating environment. When I compare this to my experience in academic research, the pace does not compare.
While the internship itself was an eye-opener, the conversations that I had with senior engineers helped to solidify what I was experiencing. At Formlabs, there were engineers from all walks of life. Some grew up in foreign countries, others never attended university, and some were current MIT graduate students. As a result, everyone had a different story to tell. The one piece of the story that remained the same across the board, however, was the thrill of seeing someone else use the product that you developed to build their own things. Even though I was an intern for a relatively short time, my internship spanned the launch of a new product. The product, known as Fuse Blast, launched about halfway through my internship, and even though I hadn’t worked on it when the reviews started rolling in, I felt a small piece of what the other engineers had spoken of. Moving forward, I want to have more experiences like this, and I feel that graduate school is not the path toward this goal.
While completing my STEP project, it also became apparent that I would like to flex my entrepreneurial muscle. The work that I was doing at Formlabs was fun, no doubt, but I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that what I was doing was making someone else’s dream come true. Almost 12 years ago now, the three MIT students who started the company aimed to bring low-cost SLA desktop 3D printing to market, and by almost all metrics, that’s what they have achieved. When people hear this story, they hardly think about the 800+ person team that made it happen alongside the founders. Now, I possess few of the skills required to build, market, finance, and sell a physical product, but I know that working at a company that has done it before certainly can’t hurt the development of those skills.
I also want to be clear that it isn’t my intention to belittle graduate school, in fact, quite the opposite. When working with the engineers who were currently attending graduate school, the sheer level of intellect that I was surrounded by awoke me to my ignorance. These people had an answer to almost all the challenges our team ran into, even if the problem didn’t remotely relate to their field of study or their training. It was a humbling experience that showed me the importance of having incredibly talented people on your team. I’ve never been the extremely academic type, nor am I gifted in the way that these people are. This, in combination with the aforementioned reasons of pace and entrepreneurship, has led me to the conclusion to forgo graduate school directly after I graduate.
While it’s not off the books for the future, the work environment, problems, and satisfaction that industry can provide are more aligned with my strengths and goals in the long term. In essence, the STEP program has been a guiding force, illuminating the trajectory of my professional journey. The financial support provided enabled me to delve into a transformative internship at Formlabs and confidently discern that my passion lies in the dynamic realm of industry, steering me away from graduate school for the time being. Equipped with a clear vision for my future, I can now take advantage of opportunities with confidence, knowing that it is bringing me closer to my goals.
