Aerospace Engineering Internship Story: Archangel Systems
Tate Alston
Aerospace Engineering
What company did you intern with and where are they located?
Archangel Systems Inc. in Auburn, Alabama
How did you identify and apply for your internship? Are there any specific resources you used to find the opportunity (i.e., Handshake, career fairs, other recruitment events)?
I was having a difficult time finding an internship, so I searched on Google for Aerospace companies in the Auburn area. I was extremely fortunate to have my father offer to give me allowance over the summer in order to be able to work for free for anyone willing to take on an intern. This allowed me to tell companies I reached out to that I was solely looking for experience in the Aerospace industry and willing to work with no pay. In my search, I found Archangel Systems and called their main office number. They allowed me to send my resume to them and invited me in to meet in-person with the Head of Engineering. The meeting went well and they said they would be happy to have me on the team for the summer, and that it would be a paid internship.
What was the application process like?
As I said previously, after calling the main company number I was able to get my resume to the Head of Engineering and was invited in to meet with him. I went in for another meeting, which was more of a light interview, and was hired shortly after.
Tell us about your internship experience. What types of tasks and projects did you engage in? Was there a particular project or part of the experience you learned the most from?
I mainly worked in three different areas in the company. I worked alongside the engineering team to solve issues that customers brought to our attention by setting up tests and compiling and analyzing data in test reports. I also helped to modernize dated documents and assemble document webs for device manufacturing and testing procedures/forms. And I worked with sales and marketing to help with online presence and brainstorm a new project for the engineering department.
In what ways did this internship help you prepare for your next destination after Auburn?
This experience gave me a lot of fundamental knowledge about the Aerospace industry that I can take with me as I start my career after college. It also gave me more confidence when meeting new people, as well as how to work in teams with people of many different backgrounds in education and experience.
In what ways did your coursework or other experiences at Auburn prepare you for your internships? Are there specific topics or skills you learned from classes that you put into practice on the job?
For me, because I had this internship prior to taking my main Aerospace courses, I ended up recognizing things in my classes that I had worked with in this job. One week, they gave me a diagram showing the basic fundamental aspects of one of their system algorithms. At the time, I had really no idea what I was looking at. However, once I got into my Aerospace System class the following fall semester, I recognized some of the variables and equations that I remembered seeing on the diagram. This is just one of many times that the skills and ideas I learned during real-world experiences helped me during my coursework.
Do you have any advice for other students looking for internships like yours?
Show that you want to learn. Showing an eagerness to learn will help you not only during the search process but also during your real-world experience. In the search process, show that you want to learn and gain real world experience that will enhance your knowledge in how different industries and companies operate. And this eagerness to learn will help to give you a good attitude when completing your day to day duties, which will always be appreciated by those around you.