Garion Brown

Responsibilities

I was an intern in the Quality Assurance lab at Barilla America. In the lab I was assigned various tasks relating to quality. I spent a lot of time working on sanitation projects, pest control projects, lab testing projects, pasta projects, etc. As an intern I think it's beneficial to try and find different kinds of projects to work on. When I came into the internship my boss had already thought of projects for me to work on. This kept me busy which I am grateful for because I always had something to learn.

Accomplishments

During my time at Barilla I tried to get involved and work on a lot of different projects. I got involved with a workplace committee, the FUN! Committee. I volunteered to design posters and serve food for the committee. I found getting involved to be a success of mine. I also wrote and designed new training books for sanitation purposes. I designed the books based on reference material I had found. Then I wrote the books by summarizing and pulling information from other material. I think this was a big achievement because I had to create something important from scratch.

Learning experience

The greatest lessons I've learned are about being professional. While working I think it's important to observe and see what goes on. So while observing you watch professionals and how they interact with each other. You can see how people might change their tone depending on who they're talking to. You can see how people ask and phrase questions in a polite manner even though they might be challenging questions. I also learned how important it is to take responsibility for your work. Sometimes a task can be time consuming where you'll have to spend a lot of time doing computer work. But no matter what the assigned task is, it's important to find the time and the certain head space to sit down and do a good job.

What advice would you give?

I think it's important to get involved in organizations while on campus that can positively reflect on a resume. By getting in an organization you can also meet people who are interested in the same stuff you are. I would also recommend going to multiple career fairs. The career fairs are great ways to find employers and see different companies. There are probably a lot of companies a student will never hear of if they don't attend the career fair.