John Deere interns gain skills and experience

This summer, Corporate Connections partner John Deere invited university representatives to hear about how some of their students spent their summer. Twelve students from ECE and CS at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign presented short talks about their experiences as John Deere information technology interns.

ECE ILLINOIS students Sankruth Kota, Gautam Putcha, Jacqueline Jiang, Santan Katragadda, Monil Pathak, and Murugan R. Narayanan, all computer engineering majors, were among the interns present. Other Illinois interns included Patrick Feltes, Priyanka Dey, Keshav Shivam, Divya Badri, and Saketh Vasamsetti, all from computer science, plus Harrison Bush (Information Systems). Two additional interns, from University of Texas-Dallas and University of North Florida, rounded out the presentations.

Each intern discussed the technical skills they developed and how they were able to experience the culture of John Deere while working on projects with existing teams. For some students, the experience was their first working in a corporate environment. Many mentioned the benefits of attending company networking events and participating in company-wide volunteer projects, including Habitat for Humanity.

"John Deere is an excellent corporate partner to ECE ILLINOIS and CS," said Nikki Slack, Assistant Director of Corporate Relations, who co-manages the Corporate Connections program. "Internships are important experiences for students. These presentations were a great way to hear what they learned first-hand."