Name: Alec Boughton
Graduation Term/Year: Spring 2018
Current Company: Case New Holland (CNH)
Current Position: Manufacturing Engineer
How long have you been in this position: May 2018
- What is the most rewarding part of your position?
- The most rewarding part of my position, is helping the Engineering Change Orders move from design to implementation. I enjoy working with the assembly line to ensure they are caught up with the changes, and then seeing the finished product with aspect from our whole team.
- What company did you do your internship experience through while attending NDSU?
- I had Engineering Internships/Co-ops with three different companies, two of which were with the help of the NDSU Career Fair. The two companies were; Trail King Industries and Case New Holland.
- Why was it beneficial to register your internship experience through the Internship Program offered through the NDSU Career Center?
- In my opinion, it was beneficial for multiple reasons. When I applied for the Co-ops through NDSU I was able to maintain a student status and hold back the date of when the interest would start to accumulate. Also, I was able to show my next employer, CNH, that my previous Co-op was recognized by NDSU.
- How did your internship experience help you get to where you are today?
- Getting an internship experience was key to my confidence moving into the full-time world of “life after college.” It not only confirmed my enthusiasm for what I was investing most of my time, money, and energy into, but also helped me reach out and make connections with multiple engineers.
- If you could give any advice to a student in a current internship position, what would it be?
- I would advise them to ask to go beyond that one position they were hired to do. In a design internship, ask about manufacturing. In manufacturing internship, ask about test. In a test internship, ask about quality, and so on. Of course, you should be in your hired role for a while before you start asking about expanding outside of it, but gain knowledge of the entire company and understand how different departments lean on one another. There is no harm in asking what all that company can offer them.
