I am a junior year mechanical engineering major at Tufts. I have to make a decision between two internship offers:
One position is a mechanical engineering internship at Anderson Power Products in Sterling, MA. This position would be very design-oriented: using Solidworks to create designs, verification testing, finite element analysis, etc. The link for that job is here: https://careers-idealindustries.icims.com/jobs/1656/intern-mechanical-engineering/job
The other position is as a Summer Technical Assistant at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, MA. This position isn’t as technical in nature, but involves many duties that are assisting engineering managers: building a database to match program managers to subcontractors, assisting in the scheduling and budgeting for programs, looking at program performance metrics, etc. The position summary is: http://imgur.com/J4jcFYX
In summary, one position is more technical mechanical engineering (Anderson Power Products), while the other has a lot of engineering management functions (Lincoln Laboratory), but the company is more interesting to me. I am leaning towards choosing the Lincoln Laboratory position because I think working there would open more doors and the company is more prestigious. Furthermore, I think it would be good to have the management side-experience to diversify myself as a senior applying for jobs. But because I would want a more technical, mechanical engineering job out of college, would this opportunity be less suitable for that? Sorry for this being a bit long, but I greatly appreciate any advice you could offer.
Thank you
MIT LL position is: http : // i. imgur . c o m / J4jcFYX.jpg
I would like to hear some advice, I have to decide by tomorrow
Figure out where you might like to work after graduation and take the internship there. Internships can often lead to full time positions after graduation. LL is going to be very different than almost anywhere else in terms of culture. It’s run almost like a university minus the classes.
That makes sense. What do you mean its like a university minus the classes?
LL isn’t supposed to do production. When the R&D is finished, they’re supposed to transition the work to industry. They work on a lot of different projects at a time, with a very decentralized management style. While funding is appropriated by Congress, researchers still need to write proposals to get specific spending approved by the customer. It’s a non-profit, so ultimately any “profits” can go into better facilities, better employee compensation, or back to MIT’s general fund. In many ways, this resembles how a university operates with different research teams of professors controlling their own fiefdoms, writing research proposals, and supervising small teams of grad students. There’s a culture at LL, which is very laid back compared to most of what you would find in industry, at least outside the West coast. For example, some of the employees I talked to could set their own hours without restrictions, as long as their work got done.
That is quite interesting, I see the connection now. I think it could be good to have the management side-experience to diversify myself as a senior applying for jobs. But because I would want a more technical, mechanical engineering job out of college, would this opportunity be less suitable for that? Culture aside, would pursuing a non-technical, more management oriented position help for technical positions after college?