Our student this week is Jordan Parkhurst, a chemical engineering major who accepted a co-op at MARS Petcare, located in Franklin, Tennessee. Parkhurst describes the department he worked in and what his main responsibilities were.
“I worked as a Global Applied Science Technology (GAST) intern, at the STARS facility for Mars Petcare,” said Parkhurst. “My responsibilities included preparation each day for the project at hand, executing mass balance calculations, automating and implementing automation for our large design experiment, extrusion work including extrusion theory and extrusion rheology, extrusion kibble trials, as well as helping at a larger Mars plant with one of the current R&D trials.”
Parkhurst found that he loved working in R&D.
“I didn’t expect to like it honestly, but learning this portion of the business has been very insightful, hard work, and fun,” he said. “I worked around a lot of very intelligent people, and learned a lot from them. I hope I get to return here as a permanent associate!”
The most valuable benefit Parkhurst received during his co-op assignment was the experience, as well as getting to know the people of Mars and learning their work culture.
“You can only learn so much from school, but the bulk of what it takes to be something like an engineer is learning from experience,” he said. “I work alongside many folks with a lot of experience that they’re happy to share with me, and that’s a priceless benefit!”