Industrial and Systems Engineering Students Talk About Their Internship Experiences

Oakland University’s Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) Department is well positioned to give their students interesting opportunities to gain work – and sometimes  life – experience. Through a variety of unique internships, ISE students are utilizing their engineering skills in challenging and thought-provoking ways.

Though working at a theme park may not seem like a natural outlet for Industrial and Systems Engineering, senior Kimmy Romstad has spent most of 2013-2014 doing just that. She began an internship with the Industrial Engineering Department at Walt Disney World in the 2013 fall semester working with the Food and Beverage team at the park to try to create a more lean and efficient operating system. She was offered a second opportunity to work at the park, this time in their Creative Costuming and Entertainment division for a the 2014 winter and summer semesters. Romstad hopes it leads to bigger 

things in the future.

“Working for a huge company like The Walt Disney Company is a great experience,” said Romstad, “because they have very structured internship programs and they make sure that you are leading projects and getting the quality experience that future employers will be looking for.” 

She also mentioned that Disney often hires out of their intern pool, so perhaps a full-time job at the company could come from her experiences.

Another engineering student with a unique experience was Industrial and Systems Engineering senior Anthony Sciuto, who worked with NASA last year. Sciuto was responsible for calculating probabilities of various occurrences, which in turn, helps predict the spare parts that will be needed on the International Space Station. He applied reliability engineering in his day-to-day work, and believes that this experience will be helpful to him when he enters the job market. This summer, he is interning with Amazon in Arizona.

ISE senior Kayla Owens has had multiple internships during her time at Oakland. On top of playing varsity soccer and working at the Tutoring Center, she is also involved in a number of on-campus groups, such as the Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society, Alpha Lambda Delta sorority, Golden Key Honor Society, and the Society of Women Engineers. After an on-campus freshman year internship studying friction and wear, Owens took a summer position the following year with Comau Inc., where she was able to get firsthand knowledge of machines and processes. This summer, she will be interning with General Motors. 

“These experiences will be beneficial to me in the job market because I will have gained so much more knowledge that just from the classroom,” says Owens. “Granted, learning about all the different programs and statistics in school will definitely help, but getting on the job training and experience is something that cannot be taught in the classroom."

To read more Industrial and Systems Engineering students' internship stories and learn more about Oakland University's Industrial and Systems Engineering program, please visit oakland.edu/ise.