ASU earns Premier School recruiting status with Ford Motor Company
Troy Buhr, an ASU mechanical engineering senior, is one of three Fulton Schools students participating in the Ford Motor Company Internship Program this summer. Photo courtesy of Troy Buhr.
ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering is now numbered among Ford Motor Company’s 22 top-ranked schools, designated Premier Schools, for recruiting initiatives. Ford actively recruits from 52 schools and six professional organizations in an effort to attract a diverse range of candidates for its summer internship and Ford College Graduate (FCG) programs. ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business also ranks in the top tier, along with MIT, Notre Dame, Purdue and University of California-Berkeley.
These top schools do well on Ford’s school decision matrix, which includes criteria like school quality, top external ranking, competitiveness and high completion rates.
Acquiring Premier School status brings with it additional funding for Career Services, increased Ford-sponsored campus activities and a designated recruiting team, which for ASU includes Armando C. Chacon, Ford Motor Company Electrical Integration Manager. Chacon received his Master of Science in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from ASU.
Michael Thompson, a mechanical engineering doctoral student, is spending his fourth consecutive summer at Ford operations in Michigan. Photo courtesy of Michael Thompson.
“One of the things that makes Fulton Schools such an attractive recruitment source is that students are so active in automotive engineering organizations,” explained Chacon. “Involvement with programs like Formula SAE give students opportunities to work in teams and develop problem-solving and leadership skills. ASU’s programs are among the best in terms of recruitment.” Formula SAE is a student design competition organized by SAE International (formerly known as the Society of Automotive Engineers).
Ford Summer Internship Program
The Ford Summer Internship Program provides students with hands-on, career-specific experience during summer break. Students are engaged in networking and educational activities throughout their internship to gain exposure to senior level management.
Mechanical engineering senior Samuel Mokdad is interning this summer at the Ford Motor Company Research and Innovation Center in Dearborn, Mich. Photo courtesy of Samuel Mokdad.
Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering currently has three participants in Ford’s Summer Internship Program — Troy Buhr and Samuel Mokdad, who both will be mechanical engineering seniors this fall, and Michael Thompson, a mechanical engineering doctoral student spending his fourth consecutive summer at Ford operations in Dearborn, Mich. Three students from ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business programs also are interning at Ford this summer.
Ford College Graduate Program
During the first several years of employment at Ford, FCGs are rotated through a variety of job assignments designed to strengthen skills and provide rapid exposure to a range of departments. Upon completion of the program, the FCG participant “graduates” and is placed within his or her home department to continue building a career at Ford.
Nicolas Corrales, an ASU 2014 Distinguished Graduate in mechanical engineering who earned his mechanical engineering master’s last year, joined the Ford team in September. He started his rotations with a month on the assembly line floor, which is standard for all FCG employees, according to Corrales. He is now on his second rotation, which is giving him an opportunity to work in computational fluid dynamics on HVAC systems, an assignment that matches his master’s program.
He’s enjoying his experience so much that he’s joined the Ford recruiting team. “I had a great experience at ASU,” Corrales said, “and see this as a way to continue my connections to the faculty and students.”
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Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering
