Summer Internship at Mercedes-Benz Vans

On today’s episode of Speaking Of… College of Charleston, Nick Plasmati, associate director of marketing and academic programs in the Honors College, speaks with Sydney Pearson, a junior majoring in systems engineering in the Honors College, about her summer internship. Sydney interned as a project manager for Mercedes-Benz Vans at its production plant headquarters in Charleston. She spent time developing data-driven tools for MBV employees across the world to make the production process more efficient.

Sydney says the soft skills she learned from her colleagues and mentors at Mercedes-Benz will benefit her personally and professionally in the future. For CofC students who are interested in pursuing an internship, she offers this advice:

“The biggest thing I would say, is that it’s never too early to start looking for an internship. As soon as you get to college, you have the opportunity to intern at different companies. Never say no to an opportunity. The biggest thing that I would tell any new intern is to just go for it!”

Featured on this Episode:

Sydney Pearson is a Systems Engineering major and Mathematics minor from Charlotte, NC. She has always had a passion for leadership and mentorship, and exercises both of these activities through various campus organizations like the SSME Ambassador Program, Charleston Fellows, the Engineering Club and Army ROTC. Outside of the classroom, Sydney enjoys travelling, long days on the beach, exercising and exploring Charleston.

Resources from the Episode:

CofC Army ROTC 

CofC Engineering Club 

Shalosky Scholarship 

CofC Systems Engineering student opportunities and internships

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to speaking of College of Charleston. My name is Nick Plasmo with the College of Charleston Honors College, and I am absolutely thrilled to sit down today with Sydney Pearson. Sydney is a junior. At the College [00:00:20] of Charleston, who is a systems engineering major, a mathematics minor, and a member of the Honors College.

[00:00:27] Thank you so much for being here with us today, Sydnee. Thank you so much for having me. I am really excited to be here with you all today. Sydney, you are extremely involved around campus. You are a member [00:00:40] of Army, R O T C. You are an engineering ambassador, a Charleston fellow among many other things.

[00:00:46] I suspect we could spend all day talking about the many opportunities you have taken advantage of, but what I would really like to focus on is this really impressive summer internship. You [00:01:00] just wrapped up. You were working in a project management role for Mercedes-Benz, specifically Mercedes-Benz Vans, which has its main North American production plant right here in the Charleston area.

[00:01:16] Now, most of us, are familiar with Mercedes-Benz as a [00:01:20] brand. I think a lot of us have seen their vans on the road. You know those ubiquitous Amazon Prime vans that are all over the place. A lot of those are made by Mercedes. 

[00:01:30] Appreciates is what it takes for a company to produce these really complex, intricate vehicles on a massive scale at different [00:01:40] production plants across the globe. And that was really what your internship was focused on. As I understand it, you were using data and creating tools to help improve Mercedes-Benz production process.

[00:01:53] can you just share a little bit about what you were actually doing in this internship? Yeah, Nick. Absolutely. I [00:02:00] was hired as the title for my role specifically was V I O SS project Management intern. And at first, just like anyone else, I really wasn't sure what all this entailed. Up until onboarding 

[00:02:14] Still had yet to determine exactly what V I O S was, but all of this I would soon learn [00:02:20] in great detail. v i o S is actually a product developed by my boss, Sid Gupta, here at the Charleston Plant. Specifically, it is a product under. The M P SS department, which stands for Mercedes-Benz Production System.

[00:02:37] That's a global department across the [00:02:40] Mercedes-Benz network focused on lean management. V I O S specifically is a. Team working with big data, and we use these data-driven decisions and business analytics, data analytics tools, as well as some machine learning.

[00:02:58] More recently. [00:03:00] To help solve problems for our clients who are internal Mercedes-Benz employees across the globe. we serve all plants. There are quite a few in Germany and we have an Argentina plant, one in Spain. our clients come to us with issues that can be solved with.

[00:03:19] Business or [00:03:20] data analytics. we take that data, do all kinds of things with it that I can get into detail with later, and then create really sleek, user-friendly end products that provide insights on what is happening with our processes every day. Now, what kind of data are we talking about here?

[00:03:39] [00:03:40] So When you say client, you're referring to Mercedes-Benz Vans, production plants across the globe who are turning to you for help and support to make their production line more efficient, more streamlined. So what are exactly, what type of data are you [00:04:00] working with to help them do that?

[00:04:02] Yes, absolutely. our data comes in all different shapes and forms. The most recent case I worked on the data was totally different, but most of the projects that we do, I explain it to people unfamiliar with production, the automotive industry or any. [00:04:20] Production plant in general 

[00:04:21] Break it down from, the moment that you wake up, how many seconds does it take for your feet to hit the floor? how much time do you spend brushing your teeth? How many ounces of water do you drink a day? Think about every single thing that you do, every process throughout the day being transformed into [00:04:40] numbers.

[00:04:40] Let's talk in more detail about some of the specific tools that you and the team developed. It's my understanding that you were actually, you created an app, you came up with certain data vis visualization reports. Now, I have never created an app, and I suspect a [00:05:00] lot of our listeners have not.

[00:05:01] So for the uninitiated, what does that process look like? In other words, what are you doing on a day-to-day basis in this internship? I was unfamiliar with application development before I started work at Mercedes. But the Microsoft Power platform, we use it for reports as, which I'll speak about later as well as for apps.

[00:05:19] And [00:05:20] it allows people like me who have had some computer science background, you've had some. Math experience, you've taken some engineering classes. You might not be a computer science genius, but with a solid coding foundation, you're able to really build an app from the ground up and customize it based off of how much code [00:05:40] you put into it.

[00:05:40] So that was, the first of the. Two really large projects that I worked on this summer I built an app specifically for our requesters who, are internal Mercedes employees. It is an interactive way for them to submit what we call use [00:06:00] cases to us, which are the issues they identify that can be solved using data and business analytics 

[00:06:05] We're able to receive the request, and then from there we had a standardized process of five different milestones The app provided them an interface where they were able to see exactly where we are in the lifecycle of the [00:06:20] use case, and it also gave them the opportunity to ask questions or leave comments throughout the process.

[00:06:27] This saved my team a lot of meetings, emails, or face-to-face contact from requesters. It gave them one interface to ask questions or leave comments at the end of the process, it gave our [00:06:40] requester the chance to provide my. Team feedback for, timeline if what we were able to produce solved their problem, how well it solved their problem.

[00:06:50] this type of work. Probably isn't just happening at Mercedes-Benz Vans, right? Data-driven decision making is at the forefront of a lot of [00:07:00] different industries across the globe. So now that you are a fully fledged app developer, now that you've got some real world experience working with big data, is it safe to say that these are the kind of skills that.

[00:07:13] Would serve you well, not just in the automotive industry, but that are going to be applicable all over the [00:07:20] place. 

[00:07:20] The project that I just left at Mercedes on my last day, for this current internship is such a great example of how you can use large data sets to solve.

[00:07:31] Problems and, incur savings and all kinds of stuff for any industry across the board, not even automotive industries. The last thing that I worked on [00:07:40] was I was able to pull data from our calendar system for all our managers at the plant. it was the highest level of manager at our plant underneath our c e o.

[00:07:52] We had all of their assistant. pull data from their calendars. I created a dashboard that assigned a [00:08:00] dollar amount to each of their meetings over the past three months. the insights we were able to draw from this were incredible.

[00:08:06] Which departments were having the most meetings? Which meetings were most expensive, the goal was to determine how we could best optimize our meeting landscape across the plant and beyond, because some of these meetings [00:08:20] were initiated by the German side or from other plants, 

[00:08:23] This is a project that unfortunately I had to hand over as my position came to an end, I cannot even imagine. Where it could go and how this could be done for different teams, different plants on a global level. So you [00:08:40] are experiencing and touching a lot of different components of. What makes Mercedes-Benz work and function and you're gained quite a bit of different types of experiences across the board, It was incredible. I kept saying how much I could learn in just a few months. While we're [00:09:00] talking about experiences and skills, I'd like to go back to before you started the internship and talk about some of the skills and experiences that may have prepared you for this. Because this was your very first internship, correct?

[00:09:15] Correct. So how do you feel some of the work that you [00:09:20] put in before you started with Mercedes-Benz helped to prepare you for the work you did over the summer? Absolutely. my position at Mercedes, I really keep saying it was a perfect storm. It happened at the perfect time. I was only coming out of my [00:09:40] sophomore year.

[00:09:40] They've been busy years, but I've only had two years of college education thus far. Two things helped me the most with this internship. One, the fact that I had just finished the main computer science iteration of my degree. I spoke a little bit about how the apps that I worked [00:10:00] on were low code and then the dashboard that I worked on.

[00:10:03] Used a language called dax, which is also pretty low code. if I did not have the foundation from my computer science classes here at College of Charleston, if I hadn't spent those hours at Harbor Walk in my classes and labs, I would've been a little bit [00:10:20] lost, So I was very grateful for that.

[00:10:22] The second thing that really. Helped me perform in such a business forward environment. I was on a heavily business analytics team. Was my engineering professor doctoral at Megi. She. I [00:10:40] attended the ethics and engineering competition hosted by Lockheed Martin, with myself and another one of my peers this past February.

[00:10:49] although this was, something totally engineering specific and a little bit different from the job that I had this summer, she was able to help us through that competition. It was a lot to do with business and ethics, and [00:11:00] she taught me, just some basic. Business practices that I should always keep at the front of my mind.

[00:11:06] And that was something that I didn't see the value at the time, obviously just as a college student. But as soon as I walked into the workforce, I just kept hearing the things that she told me over and over in my head, and I think it really helped me perform [00:11:20] in the workforce. So you're pulling little tidbits almost from the various courses that you took and the various faculty and mentors you've been working with over the past couple of years.

[00:11:29] Absolutely. I think sometimes students consider when they're thinking about an internship, they see it as something that they have to do just to fill up a slot [00:11:40] on the resume. But now that you've been through this first internship experience, it's a lot more than that, right? 

[00:11:46] Some of these concepts, ideas, techniques that you learned in the classroom. What is different about learning in the classroom versus learning in a real world experience? How do they work in concert with another? How can you [00:12:00] benefit from both? 

[00:12:02] Definitely. while it's very easy to get caught up in the academia, just studying for your tests and really trying to keep your G P A high, you remember these things while you're.

[00:12:14] Completing an internship or whether you've graduated and you begin your first job as a full-time [00:12:20] employee, you remember the things that you learned as a student, and all of that is incredibly helpful information. But for me, what I learned in industry that I could never learn in the classroom are really the professional.

[00:12:34] Personal development, the soft skills that I learned just from those working around me [00:12:40] and just being in that environment, having mentors. My manager, my boss that I mentioned earlier, SSID Gupta, he was just amazing with, really helping me drill down on this. Skills both personally and professionally that I could improve as an employee for this [00:13:00] internship and beyond 

[00:13:01] So those experiences and just really understanding how a professional environment works on a day-to-day basis and the things that you can do to thrive there, are obviously things that you can never learn in the classroom. while all of my technical knowledge. Helped me, 

[00:13:19] It was [00:13:20] everything else that I learned that really helped me swim along the way, and it was awesome. A great combination. 

[00:13:27] From what I have been told. You got connected with this internship through some good old fashioned face. To face networking. Can you share that story? Yes, I did. It's a really crazy [00:13:40] story.

[00:13:40] I am a Slawsky engineering scholar, that is one of our engineering scholarships offered by the Slawsky family. They're local to the Charleston area, there are actually three other female engineering students who are also Shaki scholars.

[00:13:56] We have the opportunity to spend some time with the [00:14:00] Schloss face-to-face. They're incredible people and I've also learned a lot from them. So there was a time, actually first semester of my sophomore year, so all the way back to December, 2022, Dr. Van den the, obviously the dean of. The School of Science, math and Engineering reached out to myself and the other [00:14:20] Sulaski scholars and let us know that the Sulaski were going to be at a College of Charleston basketball game.

[00:14:26] It was super cool because it was going to be in the President's box. It was very close to the beginning of Christmas break, but he let us know if we could make it, then he would love for us to come on down. And it worked out for me. I believe it [00:14:40] was a Sunday. I was still here in town. And I was excited to, see some basketball from the President's box.

[00:14:46] So I made my way down to TD and it just so happened that the current, she's no longer the head of hr, but back then in December, she was the head of human resources at Mercedes-Benz here in [00:15:00] Charleston, Dr. Van Den while we were just all. Meeting one another at the basketball game. He was able to introduce myself to the current head of HR at Mercedes-Benz.

[00:15:11] I expressed my interest in an internship for the following summer and she was able to send my information to HR and begin the process for me [00:15:20] I was able to be onsite interviewing at Mercedes, within 48 hours. It was incredible 

[00:15:27] Networking can be quite nerve wracking. any tips or advice you wanna share with fellow students to help them up their networking game? Yeah, definitely. The biggest piece of advice [00:15:40] I can give when it comes to networking is to really be yourself. Because now, Especially this day and age, we all have really strong backgrounds.

[00:15:49] We all have amazing educations, high GPAs, and we're all super involved. So one thing I remember, when speaking to managers or interviewers who have looked at a [00:16:00] ton of different applications is I try to. Show them who I am personally I can influence whatever team I'm working with and produce positive results for the company.

[00:16:14] Whether it's, helping your team accomplish tasks throughout the day, or you know you're gonna [00:16:20] come in and just be a really strong player yourself. I think that if you're able to get that across, then the managers and interviewers will Appreciate it.

[00:16:29] And you've only just wrapped up the internship a few days ago. But I'm wondering if you've had an opportunity to reflect on the experience and [00:16:40] the impact of this. what were some of the benefits and takeaways, maybe how have you changed as a person from the start date back in June to where we are today, here in August?

[00:16:53] Definitely this sounds a little cliche, but I think more than anything I've done a lot of growing up, I had the [00:17:00] opportunity of beginning this internship, at a pretty young age between my sophomore and junior year and just never having had that experience in the workforce in an office setting.

[00:17:11] I think a lot of my personal. Skills have been refined. I've always had a passion for public speaking, but just having the opportunity to be [00:17:20] in meetings with people from different departments, from anywhere across the plant.

[00:17:25] Speaking about real issues, collaborating, determining the best way to solve these things has further developed my skills when it comes to, teamwork, collaboration. Finding the best way to solve a problem with those around [00:17:40] you, even in the face of differences and hardships. For some other students who have not yet undertaken their first internship, any advice you have for them?

[00:17:53] When should they start looking for that first summer internship? How can they tell if an opportunity is [00:18:00] the right fit? Maybe advice that they can turn to help them get the most out of the experience. Again, reflecting back, what would you share, in a bottled message to yourself of three months ago?

[00:18:13] Absolutely. The biggest thing I would say, it's never too early to start looking. As soon as you come to [00:18:20] college, you. Are available to intern at these different companies It just depends on what they're looking for. And the biggest thing that I kept telling myself throughout the summer that I would tell any new intern is just go for it.

[00:18:35] There were times that my manager, Came to me with projects that, [00:18:40] I wasn't positive how I was going to solve. We would start with a broad idea and then drill down to a solution. And there were days that I would leave and I would be a little bit, I would be like, wow, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to attack this one 

[00:18:54] But I would just say never. Say no to an opportunity. Never say no to a [00:19:00] project. If it's something that you're passionate about, then it's all going to come together in the end. identify a field or a company you think is super cool and you're passionate about. from there, never say no and everything will fall into place.

[00:19:14] So now that you've got this first internship under your belt, any idea what's next for [00:19:20] you? In other words, where might this experience fit within your trajectory moving forward over the next couple of months, year, two years, et cetera? Yeah, so a big thing that I can take away from this experience I think is going to help me come back, as, an [00:19:40] upperclassman for the first time this year, and really be able to coordinate and work with my peers to develop.

[00:19:47] Our engineering club, which is smaller, but hopefully growing. That's a project that I would really like to start working on this year. And I think that I've developed a lot of these project management skills and [00:20:00] I've worked with a lot of different kinds of people this summer, so I know that coming back, even in an academic environment, 

[00:20:05] Skills that I have developed in industry will help me significantly there, as well as with the burnout aspect of education because now I'm able to look at the classes I'm taking from a bird's eye view and [00:20:20] understand that. Although in the moment these things might seem mundane and it might seem like the end, the degree is a little bit far.

[00:20:29] It's also important and it's for a purpose now that I've seen how much of what I learn here I can use in the workforce. So I just think it's really gonna help me coast along for [00:20:40] the next two years. I'm glad you brought up engineering, because I'd like to talk about Where engineering fits into all of this.

[00:20:49] For a lot of us who aren't necessarily well versed in that role, I think this idea of engineering and what engineers do can be a little bit [00:21:00] intimidating. so this internship role was in some ways a hybrid role? Hybrid, but it sounds like you were incorporating a lot of the. Techniques, concepts, ideas that you've learned in some of your engineering classes so far, for those who aren't well versed in that world, [00:21:20] what is engineering and why is it so integral to our society?

[00:21:25] let's say you have a relative at Thanksgiving, who asks You, oh, I'm studying systems engineering at the College of Charleston. What do you tell them? What's your elevator pitch to sell them on why engineering is so [00:21:40] integral to everything around us? Absolutely. one of the best ways to describe engineering as a whole is determining how to work smarter and not harder.

[00:21:52] This is something that, we just say. Almost joking sometimes at work over the summer. Let's make sure we're working smarter, not harder, [00:22:00] but that really is what we're doing. Especially, my position, I was working with data and a lot of optimization techniques.

[00:22:06] Mechanical engineers create machines. That help people do things across the board, really any field specifically of engineering, whether you're talking about software, whether you're talking about structural, it's really all, just trying to make [00:22:20] people's lives easier, for lack of better verbiage.

[00:22:23] On the highest level. That is how I would describe it. Obviously, it gets a lot more technical. Than that. But it can be applied to obviously any industry globally. Even my, even systems engineering that I'm studying here, it's one of the most up and coming fields and a [00:22:40] lot of companies are excited about it.

[00:22:41] So I'm proud to be a systems engineering major here. And what drove you to engineering generally? And even this particular. Engineering program in the first place, or maybe a better way to think about it. What excites you about working in the realm of engineering? we [00:23:00] kept laughing about this at work these past couple of weeks as I worked on that meeting, landscape optimization that we talked about, and I think that part of it just takes being a little bit of a nerd, loving the numbers, loving how.

[00:23:13] Things are able to look from, the user's perspective on a super clean interface. the end user isn't [00:23:20] gonna know how much data is behind that, but myself, knowing how much data is behind it, how much data engineering has been performed on it, how much code has been written on it, and it all sounds just so nerd tastic, but I adore it.

[00:23:34] It makes me really excited to work on more projects like this in the future. [00:23:40] What type of student would excel in the engineering program? If there are high school students listening to this and they're considering the College of Charleston and the engineering program, what might signal to them that, oh, I'd like.

[00:23:57] To help make life easier. I'd like to [00:24:00] help make life more efficient. Yeah, so I am actually going to stray a little bit away from the typical answer of, oh, you should like math, or you should make sure that you're good at physics, because although those things are important I think what sustains you as an engineering student, what keeps you curious and excited to get [00:24:20] this degree in the end.

[00:24:21] Is having the curiosity and a little bit of creativity to look at the world around you and be able to identify, where can I do a little bit of work that's going to have a. Great impact on a lot of [00:24:40] people. it's not easy at first to look at the processes in the world around you and determine how they can be done better.

[00:24:47] But once you are able to do it, it's something that will keep you interested forever. So I would say if you have any interest in that, you will thrive, especially in the engineering program here. Thank you so much, Sydney for joining [00:25:00] us today, sharing some insight into your internship experience over the summer, and giving us an engineering 1 0 1 tutorial.

[00:25:10] Whatever is next. Whatever lives you are improving and making more efficient, I know we will all be better for it. We appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today. [00:25:20] Thank you so much, Nick. I appreciate it as well.

[00:25:26] Thank you for listening to this episode, speaking of College of Charleston, with today's guest, Sidney Pearson. For more episodes and to read stories about our guest visit the College of [00:25:40] Charleston's official news site. The college today@today.cfc.edu. You can also find episodes on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

[00:25:57] If you like what you hear, please subscribe and [00:26:00] leave a review. This episode was produced by Amy Stockwell from the Office of Marketing and Communications. With recording and sound engineering by Jesse Cuntz from the Division of Information Technology. Thanks again and we'll see you next [00:26:20] time.