My name is Alexander, and during the Spring of my Junior year of college at ASU (pursuing an Electrical Engineering degree), I had the opportunity to intern at MJS Designs in the Engineering and Design departments. The path I took to get there was different for the team and me at MJS Designs, as I applied through the NASA Space Grant Internship program. Thankfully, the entire team was welcoming, adaptable, and supportive, which made it easy to learn and grow throughout the internship.
Starting in the first few weeks, I rotated through several departments within the company, including Sales, Solder-ops, Stockroom, and more, to gain a better understanding of both business operations and circuit board manufacturing. I observed how documentation and purchasing systems were managed, labeled and documented incoming inventory in the stockroom, attended meetings, and sat in on a conformal coating session. While I spent my internship in Engineering and Design, I deeply enjoyed and appreciated seeing behind the curtain to understand the business and manufacturing sides of the company and how my role in Engineering and Design fit into the company overall.
Throughout the internship, I gained valuable technical experience working with both the Engineering and Design teams. Under the guidance of the Director of Engineering, Devin DeGarmo, and Senior CAD Design Manager, Albert Castro, I learned how to use Altium Designer to create schematics, develop custom components, select appropriate parts for designs, and integrate embedded C programming using the PIC18 microcontroller. The Design team also taught me how to create footprints, develop PCB layouts, and complete PCB CAD designs from start to finish. What was particularly fortunate was that I had the opportunity to start a schematic design in Engineering and carry it through Design, designing the PCB layout and routing before sending it out.
I also appreciated how the team helped me get involved with activities outside of the office. They let me attend the Chandler Innovation Fair, participate in the monthly company birthday celebrations, and company luncheons.
I really got the sense that the MJS team cared, as I could constantly ask my mentors, both technical and theoretical, questions to get the support I needed, and they were always extremely flexible and understanding of my school schedule. To say that I learned a lot would be an understatement, and I couldn’t recommend interning at MJS enough, as they took the time to integrate me into the team and made sure that I could get as much out of my time there as I could.
