Podcast Transcript: How Students Can Build Careers with Hands-On Learning and Networking
Hands-on learning is more than just a way to enhance your skills; it’s a powerful tool that opens doors to networking, career opportunities and personal growth. In today’s fast-paced world, where theoretical knowledge alone isn’t enough, practical experiences are crucial in shaping a successful future.
In this episode of our podcast, Dora Smith interviews two inspiring students, Buket Kurtulus and Ayman Suhrawardy, to explore the transformative power of experiential learning and its profound impact on their academic and professional journeys.
Buket, a master’s student in computer science with a focus on machine learning, and Ayman, a biomedical engineering junior, share how internships, research and participation in innovative programs like the Siemens Student Ambassador Program have fueled their passion and set the stage for their career aspirations.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The Importance of Networking and Internships (5:14)
- The Siemens Student Ambassador Program (7:05)
- Campus Ambassador Programs and Events (13:19)
- Digital Badges and Credentialing Program (15:17)
- Balancing School, Internships and Extracurriculars (24:11)
- Advice for Alumni and Companies (27:03)
Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Buket Kurtulus:
Connect with Ayman Suhrawardy
Podcast Transcript
[Introduction] Dora Smith: Welcome to Innovation in the Classroom by the Siemens Empowers Education Team. I’m Dora Smith. Today, I’m speaking with two students who are a part of our Student Ambassador Program, Buket Kurtulus and Ayman Suhrawardy.
In this episode, in addition to sharing with me their experience in our Student Ambassador Program, Buket and Ayman also talk about what drew them to their respective studies, what advice they have for their younger selves, how they prioritize their busy schedules and even what they do in their free time.
If you’re a student, or prospective student, listening to this episode is a great way to gain some insight into the ambassador program and also perhaps find some inspiration when it comes to incorporating elements of what it’s like to work in industry into your student schedule.
[0:00-0:15] Dora Smith: Hello, Buket and Ayman! Want to get to know you a little bit better as we talk today on our podcast on innovation in the classroom. So maybe Buket, you can introduce yourself. Tell us you know where you’re from and what’s your major.
[0:18-0:34] Buket Kurtulus: I’m 25 years old, and I’m currently studying my master’s in computer science with a focus on machine learning at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich. And I’m also a working student at Siemens Digital Industry Software.
[0:35-0:38] Dora Smith: I hear you’re on the most amazing team at Siemens Digital Industry Software.
[0:38-0:41] Buket Kurtulus: Yes, very lucky with my team.
[0:43-0:52] Dora Smith: Yes, so Buket’s on our global academic team. And just a follow-up Buket. What made you choose Computer Science and those specialties? Why were you interested in that path?
[0:52-1:14] Buket Kurtulus: At school, I always had, like, a mathematical background, a mathematical focus and so when I had to choose what to study, I was between electrical engineering and computer science, but I was a bit intimidated by physics, so I chose computer science. And I have to say, I’m very happy. I think I really found my passion with that choice.
[1:14-1:23] Dora Smith: That’s what’s most important, that it feels good as you’re continuing on. All right, and Ayman, how about you tell us a little bit about where you’re at and what you’re studying.
[1:24-1:50] Ayman Suhrawardy: I’m a biomedical engineering junior at wakes University in Detroit, Michigan. The reason I chose biomedical engineering was I wanted to give back to the community of medicine without necessarily having to become a physician. So I chose to make a greater impact from the engineering side to help make better medical devices and create innovation in the medical field.
[1:50-1:58] Dora Smith: One of the things I’m curious to know is, what you have learned so far. What do you think has best prepared you for a career once you graduate?
[2:05-2:28] Buket Kurtulus: I would say the internships that I did. Now I’m at Siemens, it’s a huge company that’s a whole different experience, so I think that will help me. But also, in the past, I worked at a startup company, and it was a very different work ethic, work set up. And I think seeing both sides that really helped me really.
[2:28-2:34] Dora Smith: Really good experience to have that vast difference, right? How things get done at a small company versus large.
[2:43-2:57] Dora Smith: And if we can combine the best of both worlds, right, have a small startup mindset and a large company, we can drive, I think, a lot more innovation. How about you? Ayman, anything interesting that you’ve learned or experienced that you feel best prepares you for life after graduation?
[2:58-3:44] Ayman Suhrawardy: For me, I think what best prepares me for industry is we take a biomedical engineering design lab class from our sophomore year every semester until we graduate, and this class is a great opportunity to bring all the theoretical knowledge that you’ve learned in all of your other classes into a class where you’re working on a project. So we divide it up by three semesters, starting from our sophomore year, and then three semesters from our second semester and junior year till we graduate, where we do two separate projects, where we’re combining all these stuff that we’re taught in our classes to build a project. So last year, we worked on building a prosthetic leg for an above knee amputee patient that wanted to play soccer. So it was a great opportunity to pull everything that we’ve learned and put our minds to actually making a physical product.
[3:44-3:47] Dora Smith: That’s an amazing experience to be a part of.
[3:50-3-52] Dora Smith: Were internships required as a part of each of your programs?
[3:53-3:56] Ayman Suhrawardy: For my program, internships are not required. They’re highly encouraged.
[4:05-4:27] Buket Kurtulus: For my bachelor’s degree, we had to do a six month internship that was required from the university, and the university wanted us to get the industry experience so we don’t only have the theoretical but also see how it’s really applied, and so we couldn’t get our degree unless we had six months worked full time at a company.
[4:28-5:00] Dora Smith: Well, that’s fantastic. I think you guys are going to have a leg up on other students from other programs, right, that don’t have any of that applied experience, either in project form and classes or in internships. It’s really critical. I guess I want to understand, aside from some of that, how important do you think it is building a network and your own connections? Can you share a little bit about the role a network plays in just your schoolwork and in maybe searching for internships or full time opportunities? And Ayman, maybe we’ll start with you this time.
[5:00-5:22] Ayman Suhrawardy: I think building networking and making connections is really important for me. That is what landed me to becoming a Siemens ambassador, making those networking connections, being persistent in following up with my network to see if they have any opportunities, any openings, if they’re not from town when they were going to be in town, so I can meet with them.
[5:25-5:50] Buket Kurtulus: I have the same opinion as Ayman. For myself, we had lots of networking opportunities where I could join networks or got a mentor directly assigned to me from university. I really, have to say, I owe them a lot. They really shaped me as a person and helped me grow and get perspective on my career path, but also like on my personal I think it’s very important.
[5:50-6:16] Dora Smith: I think it’s important to always be mentored and to also mentor. So you know, even in your perspective as a student, I think you should be mentoring other students and sharing it from that perspective. So you mentioned Ayman, the Siemens ambassador program. That’s how I got to know each of you. And what brings us a little bit together today. I want to find out a little bit about, for folks that don’t know about that, can you guys share a little bit of who can get involved? What do you see as the benefits, why you became a part of it? And maybe Buket, we’ll start with you on this one.
[6:17-7:03] Buket Kurtulus: So the student ambassador program, all students can join, they should obviously bring a passion for STEM, because the student ambassadors empower learners to get excited about STEM, and the main goal of the student ambassadors is that they can show their best practices on the campus and engage directly with their classmates or their faculty. And with the benefits, I would say the main benefit is the digital badges, and also we have regular hangouts where we can all meet together and it’s an international program. So, for example, for myself as a non native English speaker, it’s a great opportunity to just get more confident in speaking in a different language.
[7:08-7:43] Ayman Suhrawardy: Yeah, I think the student ambassador program is a great opportunity for any students interested with STEM like Buket said, or interested in Siemens as a company, to join, because you will get to work with a global network, it can instantly expand your network around the globe. I’ve met with Buket, who’s based out of Germany, and Ji Ping, who’s our other ambassador, who’s based out of China. So I’ve had the chance in this past year that I’ve been on the Global Advisory Board and been an ambassador to work with people around the world and really expand my horizons about the company.
[7:43-8:12] Dora Smith: Yeah, it’s so valuable when you can, I think, learn to communicate, you know, in different languages, right? But also different time zones and cultures, and then being able to those are skills that’ll be so valuable as you guys are in the workforce, to really understand how to work with a diverse set of folks. So I’m curious if there have been either from those hangouts or some of the other things you have done, are there some interesting learning opportunities that you found for being a part of the program, or anything that maybe surprised you?
[8:12-9:05] Buket Kurtulus: We had, a few months ago, an entrepreneurship hang out, and what surprised me, of that was during the end of 2023 we asked the student ambassadors if there’s any topic that they were interested in, and a lot of them were interested in entrepreneurship and how to create a startup. So we organized, and we got an expert from Siemens software who is an expert in startups, and we had so many students join that the day of the event happening overnight we had so many more registrations that we had to switch the webinar set up because we didn’t expect so many people. But it was amazing that so many students were interested in entrepreneurship. I didn’t, yeah, I didn’t expect at that, but it was a great insight.
[9:10-9:59] Ayman Suhrawardy: Yeah, the entrepreneurship event with Audrey was amazing learning experience, and that was the most students that we’ve ever had attend that event. Another event that stands out to me was the event that we had last year with Miriam Khalil, who works at Boeing, who’s a Partner with Siemens, and that was really interesting to me, to learn about aerospace engineering and how Siemens not only works with fostering long term relationships with their own employees, but also employees at other partner companies such as Boeing. We had a great event with Miriam, where we learned about the importance of having a mentorship network and her aspirations as a young aerospace engineer was done intense program with Boeing, with multiple rotations, including rotations in Washington, DC, Seattle and Japan.
[10:00-10:21] Dora Smith: You know, it’s interesting, as you guys describe that, and you’re getting exposed to life in big companies like Boeing you mentioned, or Siemens, Buket, and getting exposed to what life would be like if you started your own company from entrepreneurship. I am kind of curious if it’s steered you any certain direction for where you want to go. I guess I’d like to hear a little bit about what’s, what’s a dream job Buket for you once you graduate?
[10:22-11:00] Buket Kurtulus: I have to say, I was very focused on going into academia and getting my PhD, getting into research, but now that I get all these insights from, and it’s also inspiring to always learn something new and that’s what I wanted from my dream job, that it’s not every day the same, that I don’t get bored. So I think now that I see more perspectives and more jobs that are available or what one can do, I’m getting more maybe confused about what my dream job is. Maybe it’s not being a researcher. Maybe it’s something completely different.
[11:01-11:35] Dora Smith: Yeah, it’s one of those things that you don’t need to decide for life, right? Giving this advice to my son, who’s starting college this fall, and you know the concern, are you choosing the right school? And this is for four years, and I’m like, we’re just making a one year at a time decision, right? You go there, you see if there’s a fit and the same thing for you and the companies you go to work for, right? You might go to big ones and then to small ones. I’ve worked for now a company has 300,000 employees, and I’ve been an employee of one and a small nonprofit. So all great experiences. How about you? Ayman, has this helped shape being a part of the ambassador program? What you want to do?
[11:35-12:04] Ayman Suhrawardy: Definitely, the ambassador program was really great learning experience in the past year, and it’s allowed me to grow a lot as a person, especially the entrepreneurship event with Audrey a couple months ago that made me align with long term goal of having my own startup, a med tech startup, where I could focus on medical nanotechnology to help reduce the need for invasive treatments to help with better diagnosis and to improve efficiency overall in the medical industry.
[12:05-12:34] Dora Smith: Can’t wait to see where you go. We’ll be tracking you as you begin that that adventure. You guys talked a little bit about some of the virtual hangouts with you know, as Audrey Villarreal, who did that entrepreneurship, and it sounds like you also had somebody from Boeing. I guess I wanted to hear if either you or some of the other folks in the ambassador program that you’re aware of, what’s an example of, let’s say, a campus ambassador program, what do those look like, and what were some of the outcomes or outtakes?
[12:34-13:37] Ayman Suhrawardy: So for a campus ambassador, that would be where the ambassador at a specific campus comes up with an idea to host an event on their campus that would be relevant to their students. So when I first started off as an ambassador last year, I came up with the idea to hold an event on the importance of networking and why it’s important for college students. So I hosted this event and invited six people from industry, three of them are from Siemens, including Audrey Villarreal, Jeff Leidlein and Honey Kath. And then I also had industry professionals from other companies and academia as well, where they did a panel event for about an hour answering the questions of the audience about why networking is important, how we can use that to land internships and make long term connections that can help you grow in your career. But then we also had a keynote address by Audrey talking about how she used networking to get to the position where she is, as she works with a lot of startups as a student Siemens startup strategy.
[13:39-13:47] Dora Smith: Yeah, a lot of good and different perspectives. Buket any example, or does it look and feel any different for campus events in Germany?
[13:47-14:13] Buket Kurtulus: I have to say I didn’t have a campus event. It was more like I worked together with a colleague, Susan Kuntz, and she organized a Solid Edge workshop for high school students, and I helped her to help the students getting to know the software and building their own key tag that we then 3d printed. Great experience.
[14:13-14:32] Dora Smith: I think you guys mentioned badging. And as folks may know, we’ve gone down a path with a new credentialing program, and badges are a key part of that. Can you guys share a little bit more? Buket, maybe we’ll start with you this time, of what are the badge, or the badges that ambassadors might be able to earn, or that you yourself have earned?
[14:32-15:19] Buket Kurtulus: So, in the Student Ambassador Program, the ambassadors can earn up to three badges. The associate, the expert and the mentor badge. And I, myself, I have the mentor badge because I a bit longer in the program and helped organize these hangouts and in the Global Advisory Board. And with these badges, we can, or the students can, share them on LinkedIn, and when applying for a job, we can use these badges as a sign to show that we had a growth as an individual, that we had a commitment besides our schoolwork, to do something and not just go to school, go home and study, that we were committed to one goal and we committed to this.
[15:19-15:44] Dora Smith: Yeah, I think they’re a great sign that, one, you’ve done something additional, right? You’ve gained knowledge or skills or experience in something else that then that employer can ask about and I think they show that you’re committed to that lifelong learning, which is so key because the technology has changed so rapidly. Ayman, how about from your perspective, what do you see as the value of having these badges?
[15:44-16:37] Ayman Suhrawardy: Echoing what Buket said, these badges that Siemens is rolling out are really great. We issued badges for the attendees for the event that I organized on campus last year. I received a badge for attending realized live as a mentor, for being a mentor on a Global Advisory Board. So I’ve, in my short time working with Siemens, I’ve received a couple of badges I wish I could add to my LinkedIn profile to show my commitment and my dedication towards an organization, towards seeing something through, such as realized live, or the engineering evolved that I hosted. So when I go to future employers, or within Siemens, being such a large company, if I wanted to go at Siemens Healthineers, they could see that I’ve continued to grow as a person over the years, and I’ve not sat at one point. And also shows my dedication towards whatever team that I’m working on.
[16:38-17:15] Dora Smith: You know Ayman, since you mentioned realize live, let’s talk about that for a few. I was just telling the story the other day about a student that did a realize live design hack last year and then got a job at a Canadian automotive company, in part because he said through the interview process, he could really talk about what he learned around digital transformation from being a part of that Design hack experience and trying to solve a customer’s sustainability challenge. How about for yourself? What did it look like getting involved with realize live, and what was that experience being like for those that don’t know? I mean, this is a really large event of all of our customers coming together and sharing best practices.
[17:15-18:33] Ayman Suhrawardy: Yeah, realize live was a really great experience. It was the first time I was attending a conference as a college student, so I was involved a little bit in the planning process, since I was a mentor for the competition. So Shannon did ask me a couple questions on how to present the data, and the question that we got from indirect racing to the students, I gave some feedback on that, and then when the competition came around in May, we worked with the students consistently to make sure they had any questions that I could answer, and just to make sure they’re on the right track, because they had 48 hours to design a lot. They were given a problem where Andretti was looking to improve their scale pad system to weigh their cars. The students did not have much constraints on what could or couldn’t be done, they just said, this is the problem, and come up with a solution. So we had five teams that realized live with us, where each of the five teams came up with very unique solutions, especially one team from Wayne State, they came up with a completely new solution, where they got rid of the aluminum that Andretti was using currently to make their scale pad system, and they came up with new polymers and new materials to make this lighter and rollable, which was a really unique concept to me.
[18:33-18:59] Dora Smith: You know, it’s always so amazing what you can learn in those experiences, one, from your own team, right, a cohort of folks that you know may be all from the same school or different schools, but also what you learn as those teams present out, right? And you see what another team came up with, it may have been a little bit different, and what you learned from the feedback from industry judges who are part of it. Buket, I think you’ve been a part of a couple realize lives, right, as an intern on our team. Can you tell a little bit about your experience?
[19:00-19:49] Buket Kurtulus: This year was my second time attending, realize live, and I have to say, it’s a bit mind blowing as a student to go there, and it’s such a different experience being second year. This year, I was kind of prepared, but it was still a bit different. I was more involved in the organization this time, and it’s helpful that I, we also have the design hack that Ayman mentioned, and we had teams from Germany, the UK and the United Emirates, and just organizing the students to come and go from the hotel, helping them During their idea process, and just enjoying all the experiences the keynotes that were presented, it was a very different experience, but very inspiring.
[19:50-20:26] Dora Smith: I love the word inspiring Buket, because even me, after going to many of these events for many years, I always find those both our own executives, but also the stories that come from our customers are there. I’ve just, you know, blown away at some of those examples. And I think they really do get us to think about how we can leverage technology for an even greater, greater purpose. I guess I wanted to find out from you guys what advice you would have for a first year student, so someone who’s just starting college, from what you have learned. What would be a couple things as top advice that you would give to your younger self?
[20:28-21:36] Ayman Suhrawardy: I would give myself the advice to be consistent, to be outgoing and don’t give up, because if you are not consistent with following up with your connections or reaching out to your network. You might miss that one internship that would have been the perfect fit for you, or if you’re not as outgoing, more open minded, you’re not even going to make those connections in the first place. So it’s really important to keep these three things in mind, be consistent, outgoing and not to give up because you don’t know when you’re gonna get that connection that can get you your dream job. So you just need to keep trying and be open minded. I wouldn’t have imagined a year or two years ago that I would be able to attend, realize live as a mentor for a competition that I’d never competed in, or I’d get the chance to actually present a panel on why academia needs to evolve to be more in line with current industry trends. So you just need to keep an open mind. Attend as many events as you can and try to make as many connections as you can.
[21:36-21:40] Dora Smith: I like that. Be persistent, consistent. Yeah, and have an open mind.
[21:42-22:48] Buket Kurtulus: I totally agree with Ayman, but I would say to be curious, open and passionate about the subject. When starting it’s like this huge topic that, like from myself, computer science has so many buzzwords, like AI, machine learning, all these topics, and it seems intimidating. And I would say to my younger self, when starting to keep being curious, keep making connections also with the classmates, so that we can get this fundamental knowledge. And once I had this fundamental knowledge, like it felt like a light bulb switched on. I kind of understood the technologies more, the programming side more and everything kind of felt in this in step. It was like this huge topic, and then everything fell into step. So just being curious and waiting, being passionate, until this light bulb switch.
[22:50-22:26] Dora Smith: I love that be curious, the curiosity. It’s as you were describing it, I was thinking of, it’s, it’s kind of like being in a foreign country or foreign language, right? Some of these new concepts or technologies come up, and it’s like, what is that? And if you can be curious and you can listen and try to learn from others, then suddenly things, some of the words, some of the meaning, is going to start to pop in place. So very good advice. So let’s talk about life’s not just all school, but how do you kind of balance it all? Buket, maybe you can start with us on this is, how do you balance you’ve done some internships, you’ve got school, I hope you have some hobbies and some downtime. How do you manage it all?
[23:25-24:03] Buket Kurtulus: During the week I try to keep specific days for my internship and specific days for school. So when I mix much during the day, it’s kind of confusing and it gets very stressful. So keeping dedicated days to each project, I would say, helped me a lot. And then on the mornings, we have a very beautiful river in the city where I live. So in the morning, just going on a run, just to get this fresh air that helps me be motivated. And on the weekends, just going out with friends, going sightseeing and just traveling.
[24:13-25:14] Ayman Suhrawardy: Yeah, I think managing school and internship and extracurriculars is, could be, quite challenging for a lot of students. And what I think works for me is understanding or realizing that I have a finite amount of time in my day, so I need to prioritize where my resources are best, but whether that is in school, if I have finals coming up, or I have exams that we or it is with extracurriculars, if I have a big event or something that I’m planning and just scheduling your day out to your day, your week, your month out in advance to know where you need to dedicate your resources that week, and then just following that schedule so that way you can be successful and give your 100% and whatever that you’re doing doesn’t mean that you should. Schedule yourself down to every minute, but if you know what you need to be doing that day, you could just get it done much better than starting every day without a plan. Then you’re figuring out half the day what you need to get done, and then you only have half a day’s worth of productivity.
[25:14-25:29] Dora Smith: Yeah, some good time management tips, definitely. So you guys have talked some about the student ambassador program. If we’ve got a student listening and they want to get involved, where do they begin? How do they maybe attend the next Hangout that you reference?
[25:29-25:45] Buket Kurtulus: So we have the Campus Connect app. I don’t think with podcasts, we can share the link, but so just suggest. Just write us a message on LinkedIn so we can get you to the app where you can sign up and then join our next Hangout session.
[25:29-26:00] Ayman Suhrawardy: Reaching out to us via LinkedIn would be the best avenue to connect, and we would be excited to have you join our ambassador program and see what great ideas you bring to the program.
[26:01-26:38] Dora Smith: So for our listeners, we do have a LinkedIn student group we can share, actually in the blog post that we share with this podcast, maybe the QR code for that Campus Connect app, which is built on our own Mendix software. All right, and last question on my mind is, how about alumni or companies? What would be your advice of what they can do to better support students in school? You guys have had some unique experiences hearing from them, but if you’re talking to folks like myself, others in industry, alumni from the schools that you’re attending, what would you ask from them? The call to action for them to get involved.
[26:38-27:09] Buket Kurtulus: The call to action from my side would be to be a mentor. Be a mentor to a student at your old university, give them guidance. It’s very intimidating from university to find an internship or the first job you don’t have very much experience as a student, and companies mostly ask for experience that you don’t have. So as a mentor, just giving the students a guidance how to navigate their path, advising them on how to improve themselves.
[27:17-28:15] Ayman Suhrawardy: I think something that companies can do is establish more like shadowing programs, because getting an internship is increasingly hard nowadays. But if there are some type of shadowing program that’s maybe a day or two where students can come in and they can try to get an inside view on how does the corporate world work, whether that is in engineering or any other field, because students involved in every field. So it would be a great opportunity for students to just get an inside look, because I think that’s a lot of what students are missing is they don’t know how to transition from like being at school for so many years of your life to now working a full time job, they don’t have that internship experience. So I think a shadowing program or something where industry could come to the university and host more programs would be great way for students to make that transition from being a student to being a full time employee.
[28:16-28:37] Dora Smith: That’s a great idea. I think, you know shadowing, and even if you can’t commit to all the time, maybe a shadowing for a day, even just an informational interview. I think if people open themselves up so that they can share with you, hey, here’s what a day in the life does look like. For me, this what my job looks like. And maybe connect you with other folks across their company that do other facets so you can learn. I think those are great ideas.
[28:41-28:50] Dora Smith: Thank you both for all that you’re doing as part of this ambassador program and bringing such a great sense of community to all the students who are part of it.
