Half way through the summer

It is half way through the summer and this is my last post, but it is not the end of my internship. I will stay in Lear until the end of July. Through the past two months, I have learned a lot. The internship has not only offered me an opportunity to apply what I learned in class, but also introduced me to the working environment in an American firm. 

What I have learned first is that big companies have their own database systems. Lear has several systems that are responsible for different activities. What we have learned in Business Information Technology class can help us a lot in real work. I am glad that I took the BIT 311 Excel class. A lot of daily jobs are conducted in Excel.

Also the experience has confirmed that the best way to learn is to ask a lot of questions. When I first started the project of account reconciliations, I had a lot of questions at first. However, I hesitated to keep asking the assistant controller, because I was afraid that I would interrupt her normal work. Later she clearly told me that she understood that I had just started and was more than welcome to help me with my questions. To work more efficiently, I usually went through the work first and made sure that I myself could not solve the problems.

Meanwhile there are some improvements I can do. I am still working on the fixed asset project, which is the biggest project assigned to me from day one. To finish this, I need to cooperate with the maintenance manager to tag the untagged items and modify the entries in the Fixed Asset System. However, he is always very busy and we have not finished tagging the assets yet. There is not much time left, so I definitely need to find a better way to cooperate with him. Or I should try to reach out to other people and see whether they can help.

In all, this internship has benefited me a lot. I got to know many great friends and learned from them. No matter in which company I will be working, the experience I gained today can definitely help my future adjustments to the new working environment.

Driving ahead

Lear corporation is one of the leading companies in the automotive industry. Its business is mainly focused on the seating and the electrical power management system (EPMS). The Taylor division I intern in is an EPMS division.

As a finance intern, part of my job is to make journal entries and also deal with some other financial related work. As I work, I have heard a lot of familiar famous car companies that cooperate with Lear, including General Motors, Volkswagen, Delphi, etc. Last month a German engineer from Volkswagen visited our plant, because VW is considering to further cooperate with us. I had an opportunity to spend a few minutes speaking with him in German. He seemed to be very happy about what he saw. I am sure that we can cooperate with VW more and receive more orders from them.

Michigan is the center for automotive industry. When I work in the company and attend the events, I feel that the companies in the industry are tightly connected. Last week I attended an event held by CoNext, Inforum. The organization evolved from the Women Economic Club and focuses a lot on building professional women's network. The event aims at offering an opportunity for the interns working in the automotive industry to get to know each other and start building our network within the industry early. I met some students from U of M who I did not realize are interning in the same industry as me. After mingling in the event, we felt more connected. Additionally, I met a lot of interns coming from other schools. It was very exciting to meet different people and learn what they are doing in their internships. Also, I got to know the industry better after the event.

The automotive industry is the main leading industry and  there are a lot of great companies in here. I am proud to be interning in one of these companies and gain the essential knowledge and skills for my future.

More than just work

It has been more than a month since I started my internship in Lear Corporation. I have learned a lot during work and enjoyed working with my coworkers. They are all quite humorous. The social life here is quite enjoyable. 

Every week we try to schedule a lunch to gather all the employees in the office together. Although probably not everyone attends the lunch, we can still have about ten people every time. The lunch gives us a chance to communicate with each other and learn about what is going on in the other departments. 

Cute cat from the animal shelter

What I like most here is that we have a “Casual Friday” rule. Every Friday we can wear jeans and T-shirts, which requires us to donate at least one dollar every time to an organization that changes every month. Last month we donated about 200 dollars to the Animal Shelter in Taylor. Some coworkers and I visited the animal shelter when the HR person sent the money there.  The cats and dogs there were all adorable. Also they need more volunteers to be there, so we decided that we would help there sometime this month to walk the dogs. 

Besides, Kim from the HR department has worked on getting discounts for us to go to the gym nearby. She has got us a great deal. It’s only a $10 dollar sign-up fee and $5 monthly fee for us to go to the gym nearby. It is kind of hard for me to maintain going to the gym, but I am trying to go there at least once every week during lunch time with my colleagues. I definitely need more exercise.

In all, I am enjoying myself right now. The social life in Lear gives me a lot of fun and I am glad to work with my colleagues.