Hi! As a recent 2020 engineering graduate student at Ryerson University in Toronto, I want to share my experience with different subjects in this post. In 2017, I graduated from the Industrial Engineering program at Eskisehir Osmangazi University, Turkey. This post details my experiences in Turkey.
Internships
I had three internships while studying at university back home. I volunteered for my first internship because I wanted to get an idea about an industrial engineer’s role in a company and the work environment. My volunteer experience led me to get my second internship at a corporate company called Aygaz in Turkey. For this internship, I was in the production planning department. I mostly spent my time in the factory to develop the manufacturing process.
Then, I ended up at Arcelik as a Data Analyst intern. I was in the office environment at that time, and having some trouble with Excel sheets! I was using my statistical knowledge to make analyses and predictions. I started doing presentations on this internship, which was different than my previous experiences.
As you can see, my internship journey was like a chain process: each one helped me to get better placements!
Conferences
In my first year of undergrad studies, I started to attend student societies events and conferences and learned about the industry and what employers were looking for from students. Most of the student conferences and industry events held in Istanbul and Ankara which are the big cities in Turkey. However, I was lucky because commuting to Ankara and Istanbul from Eskisehir was easy for me. Conferences usually took 2-3 days and conference organizers had housing options for attendees who were coming from the other cities.
The best part of these conferences was the organizers hosted CEOs of the big companies in Turkey. I remember I got the chance to watch Muhtar Kent (the former CEO of Coca-Cola) talk at ITU EMOSin 2016. I still remember his advice to us: “You should never eat your lunches alone“, emphasizing the importance of networking in daily life. I had many other inspirations from these conferences.
Networking
Don’t underestimate people who are in your life because they might be a great network for you and your future. For instance, your classmates may become your colleagues in the future or the person who sits beside you at the conference might become your boss.
Who knows?
I got multiple chances to meet recruiters and managers of top companies in Turkey and made new friendships at these conferences. Also, internships are another way to develop your network. I still have connections with my friends who I met at my internships.
The best thing about networking is everyone shares different perspectives with you which improves your point of view. For example, I didn’t know Big Data is a new trend in the sector before I met a woman in Computer Science at my internship and another example is I noticed that it is important to have a home-office option when I was a participant at Bosch Talent Camp.
Events
TEB AFK Camp
Some conferences provided case competitions with well-known companies and I attended the case competition once at IndEx’16 Conference. After this case competition, I was selected for the TEB AFK Camp.
The camp taught us innovation in the finance industry: my group and I created a business model to improve customer satisfaction based on what we learned during the training. At the end of the camp, we made a presentation for TEB managers.
Also, I improved my network with this camp. In one instance, I met Baris at TEB AFK in 2016 (first photo) and he moved to Toronto after me last year. The second one was taken in November 2019, when we met again in Toronto. How cool!
BOSCH Talent Camp
BOSCH gives undergrad engineering students an opportunity to learn more about BOSCH's culture. We visited three different cities during the camp which lasted four days. We observed the production processes and working disciplines at BOSCH.
We also met the directors and the CEO of BOSCH Turkey which gave us different perspectives about working life. Participating in different workshops and case studies challenged us to think innovatively.
I am glad to have been a participant in BOSCH Talent Camp in 2017. You can also watch the video from BOSCH Talent Camp in 2017. Click here for more details about the camp.
Projects
Arcelik Dream and Act Project
Arcelik Global had been associated with Eskisehir Osmangazi University for innovating their products. The Dream and Act project had two phases. First, we were trained by experts, professors, as well as directors in Arcelik. At the end of the first phase, we brainstormed for possible solutions and presented our ideas about the user-friendly refrigerator. We successfully passed the first phase and had one month to make a prototype for the exhibition.
In the second phase, my group of six engineering students designed and prepared the prototype to improve the refrigerator’s user experience. We made an Arduino Uno microcontroller board-based LED circuit which covered the refrigerator's door. At the same time, we created an Android-friendly app through the use of App Inventor for users to change the colour of the refrigerator’s LED. At the exhibition, we presented our prototype to visitors and the juries.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I hope you enjoyed learning about me & my journey as a student!