Get Splendid Education in USA : Student Lands the Perfect Job Before Graduation

For the past seven weeks, Austen Williams has been leading a double life.

Williams, who took part in Fall Commencement on Sunday, Dec. 7, earning a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, has been juggling the life of a full-time college student with the life of a young professional.

He has spent eight-hour days working as a regional application engineer for Henkel Corp. in Rocky Hill, Conn., and has then come back to his campus home to take classes, work on his senior capstone project, and teach a physics lab.

“It’s been quite a balancing act,” said Williams.

Williams is in the enviable position of having been offered a good job in his field weeks before graduation, thanks to his talent, drive, and a co-op opportunity that he got through the University.

During the spring 2013 semester, Professor Cy Yavuzturk, one of Williams’s professors in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture (CETA), asked his students if any of them would be interested in a co-op experience at Henkel, in which they would work full-time for six months while also receiving some college credit.

While the co-op would provide invaluable experience, it also would mean graduating one semester late. A number of students expressed interest in the co-op opportunity, but Williams was one of the few who was willing to delay his graduation for one semester — a risk that ultimately paid off.

Henkel is an international company based in Germany with leading brands and technologies in several areas. The co-op was with Henkel’s adhesive technologies division in Rocky Hill.

From June through December 2013, Williams worked full-time at Henkel, performing lab tests and writing technical reports, and met regularly with his advisor at CETA, Professor of Mechanical Engineering Robert Celmer. At the end of the six-month co-op, Williams wrote a paper about the experience.

During the summer of 2014, Williams’s former mentor at Henkel told him about a job opening for a regional application engineer, and this fall, Williams got the job. He has been working at Henkel two days a week since Oct. 20, while he finishes his degree requirements and wraps up his college career. He will start working full-time on Jan. 5.

As a regional application engineer, Williams will be working with the sales team to determine which products best fit clients’ needs, and to validate the application of those products through lab testing. Williams said that his CETA coursework prepared him well for the co-op and for his new job, by giving him the “problem-solving mentality” he needs to be able to analyze and address engineering problems.

Williams, who plays a wide range of instruments — including guitar, drums, piano, bass, harmonica, mandolin, and banjo — started at the University of Hartford majoring in mechanical engineering with a concentration in acoustics. He never considered a career as an application engineer until his co-op with Henkel, but he has discovered that it is a perfect fit for him.

“The co-op allowed me to see what an application engineer does. As soon as I started, I thought ‘This is where I could see myself being happy,’” said Williams, who enjoys working directly with customers and coming up with solutions for their needs. “I really love it.”

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