Natalie Brum has found a career she’d like to stick with.
The Florida Polytechnic University senior is completing her second summer internship in Maplewood, Minnesota, as a project engineer at 3M, a company known for its innovation in products used around the world, including Command hooks, Post-it Notes, and thousands of other items.
“I’m passionate about 3M and all the work I’ve done with this company. One of my biggest dreams is being able to come back to 3M after I graduate,” Brum, a data analytics major, said.
In her work for corporate administration and research and development department, Brum organizes the scope, timeline, and budget of a project and communicates with everyone involved to see it completed successfully.
“I am learning a lot. I’ve been able to use my major and work on data for different projects,” she said. “I believe one of the things I learned most at Florida Poly is how to communicate with a diverse group of people.”
Her work sees her doing this daily as she gets multiple people on the same page and working toward the same goal.
“I’m learning what are the right questions to ask and what are all the little details we need to have a successful project,” Brum said.
The Brazil-native worked as a manufacturing systems intern at 3M last summer, landing that internship when she attended a conference of the Society of Women Engineers in Philadelphia and received an interview with 3M on the spot. She’s now president of the society’s Florida Poly Chapter.
Brum said students should complete internships whenever and wherever possible to get a better understanding of how industry works as well as real job duties, and how to work without fear in a lower-stakes environment.
“It’s a chance you get for a three-month free pass where you get to make mistakes and be able to learn from them and learn if the job is something that you enjoy,” she said. “Everyone here knows I’m an intern and I’m learning, so if I make a mistake it’s OK. It’s a learning process.”
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Lydia Guzman
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