Summer 2020: Hardware Product Engineering @ General Motors
300 Hour Experiential Learning Experience
Description:
In the summer of 2020, I worked as an engineering intern in GM’s Global Product Group. More specifically, I worked as part of an electronics requirements team. My internship assignment supported ambient interior lighting features on vehicles, as well as a module that will expand functionality on GM’s all-new Vehicle Intelligence Platform.
My assignment directly involved analyzing hardware requirements and applying systems engineering concepts to develop state-transition diagrams and gating tables. In addition to working with other engineers on my team, I was involved in cross-functional discussions with various stakeholders within GM to support the development process of these features. This included investigating alternative approaches and making recommendations based on the tradeoffs involved, with the customers’ needs in mind.
My primary learning objective for this internship experience was to gain a better understanding of how engineering (electrical, computer, systems) is done in industry. In particular to the automotive industry, my goal was to develop familiarity with the vehicle development process both at a high level (entire vehicle) and one that is specific to my project (requirements development). In addition, my goal was to gain more domain knowledge (e.g. serial data design), as well as skills in applying design innovation frameworks such as Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).
As part of my internship, I completed GM-specific online coursework that I was able to successfully apply to not only my my internship project that summer, but also my future endeavors.
How it fits in:
As an engineering student, my goal for pursuing the I&E Certificate is to complement my technical education with coursework at the intersection of social sciences, business, and innovation. I am especially interested in how engineering and technology can be leveraged to create solutions that solve problems and create value.
My internship experience at General Motors aligns with my chosen pathway and goals for pursuing the I&E Certificate because it allows me to experience (and learn) first-hand the work that is involved with innovating in the automotive/technology space. The products my work this summer is contributing to are new features that have not been implemented in the past by GM.
Reflection:
Through my I&E coursework, I learned how to take a user-centered design and holistic business approach to solve problems. I was able to apply these concepts directly to my internship at GM. One of my roles for this internship was to write requirements for a vehicle module based on customer feature requests. This role required me to think about the product from the customer’s point-of-view, and advocate for specifications that that best fit the users’ use cases.
Through my internship, I also collaborated closely with the user experience (UX) team, research/advanced technology team, manufacturing, and other internal and external partners. This allowed me to think deeply about product development from a multi-faceted perspective, and how many moving parts within a company must come together in order to deliver on a successful product.
Artifact:
While my work at General Motors is confidential, I have created the following slide deck that summarizes my internship and key learnings:
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab 