Moving to Mississippi!

This is the first academic school year (ironically, my last one enrolled as an undergraduate), where I have established my plans for the following summer vacation, before Thanksgiving has even hit.

I am here to announce that I have accepted an internship offer with Nissan Motor Company to start June 2, 2008 and will be working at their Canton, Mississippi and Smyrna, Tennessee plants!!!!!!!!!! I will return to Wisconsin at the end of August, to finish my closing semester of undergraduate engineering. I graduate in December, 2008.

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!



I will be working on what they call a rotational internship. Nissan doesn't have their budget figured out yet to know which plant can take me first, but they know they have the money to take me on...heck, they joked about me dropping out of school to start working for them full-time, they wanted me so badly...and with a rotational internship, I will volley back and forth between the two southern factories (in Tennessee and Mississippi). But, I will be working in my DREAM DEPARTMENT!! Quality control in engineering -- checking over parts and processes to make sure that the products fall within a certain certified control limit. No faulty parts, no breaking points or stresses on physical pieces you can turn over in your hands, no scratches, etc. I will also be a part of their testing engineer station, where Nissan test drives each and every one of their vehicles that comes right off of the assembly lines. I will help drive the vehicles through a rain cave, to simulate a rain storm around the vehicle to test for leakages. I will help inspect paint jobs. I will drive the vehicles through obstacle courses to test the headlights, turn signals, brakes, 4-wheel drive, and horn. I will even watch them park the vehicles in a dynamometer to test its shifting and transmission, which is something I have always been fascinated by!!

For the three months I will be working there, I will be in a different part of the Quality Department each month:

1) Product Quality
2) Quality Assurance
3) Process Engineering

THIS IS MY DREAM, exactly the part of the umbrella of industrial engineering that I wanted to get into!! Yesssss!

Can't get much better than this!!!!

Since Nissan owns Infiniti, I not only get to build and work with the saucy sporty line-up Nissan has (which I, again, am falling more and more in love with), but I also will get to see the luxury cars of Infiniti, including the G35 and M35/45.

Specifically, at Canton, MS, they manufacture:

-Nissan Quest minivan
-Nissan Armada full-size SUV
-Nissan TITAN pick-up truck (my faaaaave!)
-Nissan Altima sedan
-Infiniti QX56 luxury SUV

And at Smyrna, TN, I personally saw them manufacture:

-Nissan Frontier pick-up
-Nissan Xterra
-Nissan Altima sedan
-Nissan Altima two-door coupe (this car is HOT!! It will catch fire soon, I can predict it!)

Alas, I will help make each and every one of these models. :) :) :) SO STOKED!



You guys, it all happened so fast, and I am so proud. I owe it all to my involvement with the Society of Women Engineers. In the third week of October I took nine girls down to Nashville, TN for a week-long national conference. Part of the conference included a two-day career fair, where girls from SWE from all over the nation could have the undivided attention of Fortune 500 companies, to court them for internships and full time positions.

It was amazing. Thrilling. Eye-opening. NERVE-RACKING!!!! I swear there are so many miniature Condoleezza Rices out there, it made me nervous for all five days I was there!

Yet I am proud to say that I flew back home from that conference with three job offers. Three very, VERY high-profile job offers. :) :) :) I stunned all of my colleagues and the bitchy girls from the wanna-be ivy leagues. One offer would take me away to North Carolina, another to Auburn Hills, MI, and of course this one with Nissan, in Mississippi.

I took the one from Nissan because I am quickly falling in love with the company. While I was there, my friend Sonja and I were two of the lucky 30 people that got to register for a confidential tour of their manufacturing plant in Smyrna. (Just southeast of Nashville.) The facility was clean, clean clean, NOT union-ized, which is good because I despise unions, and what was cool was that the staff were all happy to be there, working. I mean, the plant was over a mile long in width, so the tour rode around on these golf-cart machines. And we'd pass welders with their big gloves and scary faceplates on, or Ollie the Ox moving around a cart full of sheet metal, and each one of them would stop what they were doing to have a free hand and wave at us. The smiles on their faces will rival that of the shine from any star or angel you're about to put on your Christmas tree for this holiday season.

Plus, in the hour-and-a-half chitchat that was supposed to be an interview with the two quality engineering guys, they told me more about the company (they've had 0% debt since 1998, the company rose up from nothing, as a true Cinderella story), and how much better it is compared to their competitors, which they have each worked at. (There's a slogan that says, 'In the automotive industry, everyone knows everybody.' This rings true, here.)

It was so cool, especially for 1) being in a manufacturing environment, and 2) being in an automotive manufacturing environment. I've been warned time and time again that it is a volatile industry to get into, and that I would be bored. Well, color me surprised, because I just love sitting in these factories. The noise, the movement, the smells -- I remind myself of my own puppy back at home, just sitting there watching in awe, watching the world go by. I could watch for hours, it is so interesting to me.

I do believe I have found my niche! I am happy for my future and my career aspirations. Bring on next June!