Semester Study Abroad: Part 3 of 4

As a member of the Office of Professional Practice’s Global Engineering Alliance for Research and Education or GEARE program, I must complete an international research or internship experience prior to graduation.  I can chose to fulfill this requirement in any country that I would like to, but I chose to look for opportunities to extend my time in Colombia.  Thanks to a very proud Purdue industrial engineering alum originally from Medellín, I was connected with Grupo Nutresa.  Grupo Nutresa is a food processing conglomerate and the fourth largest food company in all of Latin America in terms of market capitalization.  It also is consistently named one of the best companies to work for in Colombia.  I successfully completed an interview in Spanish with one of Grupo Nutresa’s divisions, Compañía Nacional de Chocolates, and was hired as an operations intern for the summer of 2015.

Marissa (on right) with her supervisor

For my internship, I worked in a smaller town outside of Medellín named Rionegro in Compañía Nacional de Chocolates’ largest production facility.  I lived many students’ dream, and for ten weeks I worked in a chocolate factory.  The factory produces a wide array of products focused on chocolate, nuts, and cereal bars.  I was concentrated in the nuts zone.

My internship was so valuable, for both my professional and personal development.  I received the normal benefits of putting my engineering education into practice and gaining work experience, but I also learned much more than that.  I developed enough of a technical vocabulary in Spanish that I am now able to comfortably write technical reports or give presentations in Spanish.  I learned how to relate to and work with coworkers who not only spoke a different language than me, but who also were accustomed to an entirely different work and professional culture than mine.  In fact, it was an invaluable lesson for me in being flexible and adaptable to the professional situation I am placed in.  I also had the opportunity to work on a joint project between research and development and operations and was able to put my English fluency to good use as I served as the sole point of contact with a United States based provider for a new raw material.  

As an intern, I was given a large amount of responsibility and allowed to work on activities that branched outside of my field of study.  I also have made great international contacts for a potential career in South America.  And all of this was made possible through the Purdue network.