Gina:
I chose Michigan Tech for a combination of reasons. Part of it was the natural beauty
of the area and the welcoming community, and part of it is, of course, because it's
kind of an academic center of excellence. So the combination of the community plus
the academic side really drew me in.
I did my undergraduate in accounting and finance. I double-majored, and I decided
to go into that because I eventually want to start a nonprofit organization. And I
thought that a good background for that would kind of be on the fiscal side of things.
So one of the best parts about Michigan Tech is just the sense of community that everyone
has. People here, for the most part, really support each other. It's not a super competitive
environment, but everyone kind of wants to build each other up and succeed together,
which is really important to me because I didn't want to go to a school where I was
just going to be a number. And so that is one of the ways that, at Michigan Tech,
you're a person. Like, everyone is working together to create success.
The best advice that I can give to any student is to just take the opportunities that
are presented to you. I mean, there are a million different opportunities that are
out there, and following after a few of them is the only way that you're gonna learn
what you like, what you don't like. What may end up being kind of the path that you'll
go down may not be what you originally expected. It's just taking advantage of opportunities
as they come up.
And additionally, following your passion, finding out what you're passionate about,
what makes you tick, and following after that really makes a huge difference because
everything that you do then builds on that. And that's so important because everything
has purpose then.
So in January, I'm gonna be starting as a finance associate at Kohler Company. And
I originally heard about Kohler here on campus. They were hosting an event before
Career Fair, and I went to that. The more I heard about the company, the more I just
fell in love with their mission and their vision and the way that they operate just
as a business.
A lot of people think that Michigan Tech is just an engineering school, but that is
far from the truth. I think it's maybe a little more than half of our students are
engineering students, but we also have business and humanities and arts and other
science disciplines, and there's such an opportunity for cross-discipline.
So, like, if you join an enterprise or something like that, it's a really cool opportunity
to expand your ability to communicate with people and to work with people who are
in different disciplines than you. And I think that's been really beneficial to me.
I've seen it. It's been helpful to me, like in my internships and stuff, like being
able to communicate with engineers and other people.
And so I think that opportunity to see other disciplines, maybe in another way that
you may not have—schools that might be more heavy in non-STEM—that really opens up
some doors as well.
