During my time at Epic, I shadowed Todd Dale, a 2009 CBE alumnus who works as a Technical Services Engineer/ Technical Coordinator. Gina Davis, a 2010 graduate of Princeton working in Human Resources at Epic was also a very welcoming host; she met me at the front desk every morning and walked me to and from different meeting with Princeton Alumni. There’s actually a whole family of Princeton alumni at Epic! I met with David Schmidt, a 2002 graduate working in EDI, KL Huang, a 2011 graduate and a Technical Services Engineer, Emma Schultz, a 2012 graduate and also a Technical Services Engineer, and Doug Wolf, a 2009 graduate and a Project manager at Epic.

It was great to see how alumni were using their engineering degrees in very different ways, and also to understand a little bit more about what working in the real world is like, although I’m not sure if Epic’s campus qualifies as the “real world” – a lot of the time, I felt more like I was in Disney world. The campus is split into several themed buildings (Todd worked in the African themed building, complete with an Indiana Jones hallway). There is a video game themed building, a western themed building, etc. and more in the process of being built. Not to mention, they have a banana chair and a slide!

Going into my Princeternship, I didn’t really understand what a technical services engineer does, other than that every day is a little bit different, they solve problems, and they’re engineers.  After shadowing Todd and the other Princeton alumni, I realized that the job description was intentionally vague. Engineers at Epic are given responsibilities, but they are also given a good deal of liberty in figuring out what kinds of projects they want to work on. For instance, while Todd was mainly working with his customer, he also did some coding and helped with internal structuring questions as part of his duties as a technical coordinator.

I really enjoyed my time at Epic – I learned a lot about what you can do with an engineering degree. It’s refreshing to know that life outside of Princeton can still involve learning, and it can definitely still be fun! I personally appreciated getting opinions from different Princeton alumni regarding major choices and whether I should consider graduate school. It was very helpful to get opinions from alumni working in different positions who graduated from different engineering disciplines at Princeton.

Overall, I had a great time at Epic – I would really recommend this program to any students interested!