Internship Spotlight – Laura Rodriguez (SUMMER 2010)

Laura Rodriguez is a senior INTA major from Cumming, GA and one of the first people many campus visitors meet, as she serves as a Georgia Tech Ambassador.  Ambassadors serve as official student hosts at a variety of on-campus events as well as provide personalized tours of the campus.  In this role, she has been featured in a number of GT public service announcements.  In addition to her role as GT Ambassador, Laura has been a GT 100 Team Leader and a student recruitment volunteer with GT Football.  After graduation, Laura is considering a career as an Environmental Consultant after law school. We asked her a few questions about her internship with BMW Manufacturing in 2009, and how her time at Tech helped her succeed in her internship.

What did you enjoy most about your internship and what did you find most challenging?

I interned with the Environmental Services Department of BMW Manufacturing in Spartanburg, SC, during spring 2009. My favorite part about my internship was how much I was able to learn about a subject I am very passionate about, in a very hands-on way. It was great to see a corporation take charge and responsibility for their environmental footprint and reduce it while still making a product the world wants. The most challenging part of my internship was the learning curve of going from student to being in the professional world. Also, there were many processes I had to learn, including environmental legislation, how to write internal and external reports, and collecting meticulous data, that were difficult at first.

Tell us about an experience that made an impression on you during your internship.

The biggest impression I took away from my internship was the people in my department. The four people that I worked with are really passionate about what they do, and they work very hard to achieve it. I saw that across every department in the plant, and it was great to see professionals share what they love doing with the interns.

In what ways did your time at Tech prepare you for the internship?

The biggest lesson I took from Tech was just to work hard and have a good business ethic.  I was able to confront challenges and meet deadlines because I was used to the rigors at Tech.

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