Controls Design Work at Koops, Inc
Ryan
Experience Information
Employer: Koops Inc.
Job Title: Controls Design Co-op
Major: Computer Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Koops, Inc. is an employee owned company in Holland, MI that builds custom automation equipment for a wide variety of customers. The company is a moderate size (51-200 employees on LinkedIn) company and takes pride in the values of Integrity, Team, Excellence, and Stewardship.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
During the first week of my co-op, I did training in AutoCAD Electrical to become familiar with the tool and the format of the electrical prints at Koops. During the next few weeks I did updates for existing prints to get introduced to many of our components and common circuits. Next, I was given more responsibility and began attending project meetings and taking notes alongside my mentor, Nate, who is a GVSU Engineering graduate. Towards the middle of the semester Nate began giving me more control over the jobs I was working on and I began being the sole voice in meetings/conferences, communicating with customers and other engineers, and getting items quoted through our vendors. By the last month of my semester I was running several small and medium sized jobs with the circuit design, component selection/ordering, and meetings being ran by me with Nate supervising and ready to answer any questions I had.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
I learned a ton of professional skills during this co-op. I learned how to conduct myself in meetings and conference calls, how to deal with vendors, how to communicate with other engineers/customers, and how to use professional software to create electrical prints. By far the most important things I learned were how to stay on schedule and how think critically as well as solve problems like an engineer. I feel like I made significant progress in moving from being a "student engineer in training" to a real world engineer.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part of this co-op was definitely the people I worked with. My whole team was incredibly talented and was helpful in getting me up to speed as well as answering any questions that I could not solve myself. I credit my mentor with pushing me every day to be independent in my work and solve problems quickly and correctly. He always told me that "It's not about how many mistakes you make, it's how many mistakes you can identify and correct that makes you a good engineer. You can quote me on that!" (Nate Jessup, 2018). He is also the one who said that at the end of my three rotations I should be doing work like a full-fledged engineer, and that in order to do that I need to learn to be independent and not rely on asking the more experienced guys about everything. By doing this I will learn where and how to access information, read datasheets, contact vendor representatives, etc, and in doing so I will gain experience which is arguably more powerful than knowledge in any particular field.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
Working at Koops has made me even more interested in the electrical/computer side of engineering. My next rotation is in controls programming for PLC's and I could not be more excited. In the future I hope to land on an engineering team that I can get along with, and have work I can enjoy and take pride in.