How I Made My Way to J&J

While others picked up new hobbies – from baking bread to crocheting sweaters – during the pandemic lockdown, I was able to build my professional skills so I could finally get a taste of industry life.

Rutgers connected me with amazing people through its alumni network and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). One of SWE’s initiatives is its Industry Mentorship Program, which paired me with a mentor at Johnson & Johnson who gave me a ton of valuable advice.

Landing My Internship

She emphasized the importance of continually learning new skills and inspired me to meet with people to learn about their career journeys. Following her advice, I reached out to Rutgers alumni that I knew, found via LinkedIn, or met at networking events. I learned about their career paths, how they prepared for interviews, and how important a company’s culture is.

When I applied to J&J, I wanted to do it on my own, so didn’t tell anyone – not even my mentor – until after I was hired. But in fact, it was through chats with my mentor and many Zoom calls with Rutgers alumni that helped me land my summer internship with J&J as a compliance and technology intern.

Owning My Project

My favorite internship experience was leading meetings with employees all around the globe – from India to Panama to Lebanon.

As part of healthcare compliance, we’d work to make sure that J&J follows laws and regulations, and conducts its business ethically. When compliance officers asked my team if there was a better way to represent hard-to-understand data needed to make business decisions.

I helped them by creating a Tableau dashboard that intuitively represented their data and enabled them to gather insights from it. Not only was it an awesome experience to learn Tableau, but it was even cooler to interact with international employees and have full ownership of my project.

Prepared for the Future

Rutgers engineering truly prepares students for any industry. We learn how to think critically, creatively solve problems, and become effective leaders. While I was a biomedical engineer by major, my internship was within compliance and technology integration, which allowed me to work with powerful software and programs that can be transferred to many areas.

With my experience, I landed a HCC compliance and technology integration co-op at J&J, I’m placed within data engineering and analytics. I’m so grateful to Rutgers engineering for helping me get to where I am today.