Recently, a select few Education at Work student employees at our Utah site received a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit an EAW partner and global technology company’s headquarters in Washington. Each student chosen earned their ‘Golden Ticket’ through hard work and dedication. The following eight University of Utah students and EAW employees were chosen to attend the ‘Golden Ticket’ trip: Austin Gibbons, a computer science major and senior; Taysha Tiatia, an economics major going into her fourth year; Arielle Lupo, a biomedical engineering major going into her fourth year; Tayler Looney, a biology/pre-med major and a junior; Yulissa Garcia, an operations management and supply chain major going into her fourth year; Freddy Lafoou, an entrepreneurship major in his junior year; Jace Wilko, a marketing major who will be entering his sophomore year this fall and Peter Sullivan a marketing major going into his junior year. During the trip, students saw the sights in Seattle, Washington and were given a tour of the global technology company’s headquarters by several members of staff. During their experience each student spoke to employees at the Fortune 500 to understand how they got to where they are and to learn more about the company.
“It was really awesome and a one-of-a-kind opportunity to learn about your role at EAW and to learn from the staff at a Fortune 500 and to really understand their mission statement,” said Taysha. “We talked to the head of Customer Service Support and she inspired us to think about the reason behind a 6-star customer experience.”
Staff and engineers at the site were extremely open to networking and encouraged students to connect on LinkedIn.
“After seeing everything, it gave me a greater sense of direction on how to tackle school and actually made me feel like a job at a Fortune 500 is more obtainable,” said Jace. “It’s great seeing their passion and it even developed my own.”
Students were able to see what the engineers are currently developing and learned about their creative process.
Tayler Looney, a biology/pre-med major, shared that one of the best things on the trip, for her, was to sit down with the engineers and interns and talk to them on a personal level. Tayler said that hearing from the interns, their experiences and how they got into the program was a great experience.
This trip is just one example of what Education at Work does to help students build their networking skills and gain real-world experience. We are proud to have a helping hand in building brighter futures.