- Major: Mechanical Engineering
- Company: Denso Manufacturing
- Graduation Year: May 2022
- E-mail: jnoll1@vols.utk.edu
Profile
I performed my co-op with Denso at their Athens, Tennessee, location for 3 consecutive rotations. The company as a whole is a car parts manufacturer, but my plant location focused on fuel injectors, high pressure pumps, and low pressure pumps. I worked in the Total Industrial Engineering (TIE) department, but also got to work on various mechanical projects. Some of my main projects included redesigning and reallocating our component storage area, implementing a new warehouse management system, and reducing machine and human cycle time for one of our high pressure pump lines.
I decided to co-op because I wanted to put practical use to what I had learned in my classes. I am a hands-on learner, so taking a year off of classes in the middle of my schooling gave me an opportunity to apply the knowledge I had already learned and also give myself practical examples of content for my future classes.
The warehouse management system I aided in implementing needed the help of production control, logistics, industrial, and production departments. Yet, when implementing, there were many department changes occurring, which ended up leaving me as the most knowledgeable on my plant's specific system. At the beginning of my co-op, I would not have been prepared for something like this, but by the end I was confident enough to lead meetings and gain the respect of my coworkers who treated me like a permanent employee. I learned that having confidence in what I was doing and taking charge allowed my projects to be more innovative and progress quicker.
Professionally, my co-op taught me how to conduct meetings and how to be persistent when needing the collaboration of a coworker. Academically, my co-op has shown me that everything does not fit in a perfect puzzle in engineering. I learned that you have to prioritize various aspects of a project or idea, which correlates to how I need to approach my classes. Being on a co-op assignment prepares you for what you will do after college. The actual day-to-day work of an engineer is much different from your classes, so it is very beneficial to understand what life after college will be like. With this, a co-op can help guide you to the job you would like in the future and the type of company you would like to work for.
I love sports and am the president of the women's club volleyball team. I also like to stay involved in both the social and philanthropic aspects of my sorority, Alpha Delta Pi.
