Intern Spotlight - From Campus to Career
At Heraeus Electronics, we believe in nurturing the next generation of materials science professionals through hands-on experience and meaningful mentorship.
One shining example is Caleb Yanagawa, a Materials Science and Engineering student from Drexel University, who recently completed a six-month cooperative education assignment with our team. During his time with us, Caleb brought fresh energy, technical curiosity, and a collaborative spirit that left a lasting impression on both his colleagues and the projects he touched.
What inspired you to join our team as an intern, and how has this experience impacted your career growth?
I joined the Heraeus team to gain experience in a lab setting and in interacting with customers with little expectations on what I would be doing on a day-to-day basis. This has been a great experience for me in learning how to operate as a team across various departments.
Teams provided consistent communication, and everyone has been very patient and willing to share knowledge with procedures and the more technical theory behind the products and methods that we use. I plan to carry the team oriented and curiosity mindset to every future job along with the skills and knowledge I gained at my time with Heraeus.
Can you share a specific project or task that you worked on during your internship that you are most proud of, and why?
One of the major projects I worked on during my time at Heraeus involved creating a testing set-up and procedure to benchmark the performance of one of Heraeus’s FlexTerm products against similar industry offerings. This was a very rewarding project to work on and I am proud with the work I did. I made many changes to the existing testing apparatus to produce consistent and repeatable results, making comparing different products possible.
I also developed a standard procedure of how to run this test that I will pass off to another team member to continue the work with studying this product. I felt that I had a lot of freedom to creatively work my way through the beginning stages of this project to better understand and qualify this product.
I am very happy with what I was able to achieve in these 6 months.
What has been the most rewarding part of your internship journey with us, and how has it shaped your perspective on the work you do?
One thing that I was pleasantly surprised with being in an intern role at Heraeus was the amount of independence I had in planning out my schedule and workload. It was a challenge at first, but when I reached out for assistance, everyone was very willing to take time to help with whatever I was having trouble with.
This assistance ranged everywhere from time management, experimental procedures, and presentation advice. The independent aspect along with the kind help made this experience extremely rewarding. These past 6 months have prepared me well for all future work environments; everyone I worked with made me feel very comfortable with starting a new role.
I admired everyone I was able to work with and if there is one thing I want to become is someone who can be just as helpful to others as they have been for me.
