Broan

Advanced Engineering Co-Op

January 2020 • Hartford, WI

What I liked

Advanced engineering team is super cool, and my supervisor was a great mentor. I had a lot of hands on experience. I got to build prototypes and demos, test and troubleshoot firmware, and sometimes work with Arduino and PCB design. My boss called this a "Project Engineering" role. Essentially, it's little design and a lot of validation. Lots of critical thinking and communication to make these projects succeed. Most importantly, I got to own my own work and have an impact on projects. My boss told me that, by the third term of my co-op, I was doing full-time entry-level engineering work, which was very validating.

What I wish was different

Originally this Co-op was supposed to be a mix between big projects and small projects. On big projects I would learn a lot about how the company works and how to do engineering beyond the "hard" engineering. On the small projects, I would get to learn more technical skills. Due to COVID, I was actually on 2 huge projects which was a great learning experience. I do wish I got more time on the smaller projects to develop different technical skills.

Advice

Learn how to manage your time and work independently. My boss always says, "You're going to make mistakes, might as well make them now when you can't get fired." I think that's a good guiding message for this experience.

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