Work Experience

Been There. Done That.

Get on-the-job experience and build professional skills before you hit the job market. Experiential learning through internships, incubators and industry partnerships helps you feel at home in the professional landscape.

Practice your purpose:

Center for Entrepreneurship, Internships and Co-ops, Multidisciplinary Design Program, Tauber Institute for Global Operations, Technical Communication Program

“Being a member of a Multidisciplinary Design Program (MDP)team allowed me to gain valuable, hands-on experience with engineering design and professional communication. Working with a company in industry throughout the school year with MDP is incredibly valuable and ignited my passion for product design.“

Peter Wacnik
Mechanical Engineering
Engineering Honors Program
Multidisciplinary Design Program (MDP)

Center for Entrepreneurship

The CFE is an innovation hub where the ideas, people, resources, and technology meet and create the future. We provide active-learning experiences to all students via ENTR classes and immersive programsdesigned to translate high-potential projects and ideas into the world. CFE fosters an entrepreneurial mindset by preparing you to identify opportunities, innovate, experiment, build relationships, manage risk, and persevere. You’ll learn to create and communicate via these constructs and become better prepared to lead teams that identify – then act to solve – impactful problems.

Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE) website

Talk to a human: entrepreneurship@umich.edu | 734-763-1021

Semesters Offered/Recommended: Year Round 

Financial: Aid Available

Goes great with

Looking for something to complement your CFE experience? Consider one or more of these:

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If CFE isn’t quite your style, one of these opportunities may be a better fit.

Resumé builders

Core Professional Competencies

Experiences through the Center for Entrepreneurship build the professional competencies that employers say they’re looking for, including:

  • Entrepreneurial Mindset: Participate in trans-disciplinary experiences that teach you how to successfully translate high-potential projects and ideas into the world. 
  • Ability to Accept and Manage Risk: Learn to critically assess available information, take action despite uncertainty, manage outcomes, and learn from failure as well as from success. 
  • Teamwork: Develop empathy to communicate, create and innovate. Collaborate to define and achieve shared goals by leveraging different perspectives, roles, responsibilities, and aptitudes. Learn to overcome conflict, then use it to your team’s advantage to create robust solutions. 
  • Grit: Sustain goal-direction action and effort, despite adversity. Maintain a vision of the future, and, lead with impact.

If you’re a Michigan Engineering student, use Spire to find out more about how CFE can foster your professional growth. 

Internships and Co-ops

Our mission is to offer comprehensive career development services to University of Michigan  Engineering students to support a successful transition from campus to career, and to assist employers with developing and maintaining successful recruiting relationships with the College. 

Engineering Career Resource Center website

Talk to a human: ecrc-info@umich.edu | (734) 647-7160

Semesters Offered/Recommended: Year Round

Financial: No Extra Fees

Goes great with

Looking for something to complement your internship or co-op experience? Consider one or more of these:

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If internships or co-ops aren’t quite your style, one of these opportunities may be a better fit.

Resumé builders

Core Professional Competencies

Internships and Co-Ops help you build the professional competencies that employers say they’re looking for, including:

Systems Thinking / Authentic Problem Solving: The ability to recognize, analyze, and work through complex problems with the goal of developing and implementing multifaceted solutions. 

Teamwork: Work with diverse groups of people to leverage skills, knowledge, abilities, and experiences of individuals to achieve organizational goals. Embrace and work through conflict to ensure that issues are critically examined and optimal solutions are reached. 

Communication: Learn to critically read, listen, reflect, and convey information in meaningful ways to diverse audiences.

If you’re a Michigan Engineering student, use Spire to find out more about how Internships and Co-Ops can foster your professional growth.

Multidisciplinary Design Program

The Multidisciplinary Design Program provides team-based, “learn by doing” opportunities for 950+ students from across the University every year. With MDP, you can: apply what you learn in class to engineering design challenges; gain the technical and professional skills necessary to thrive in engineering research or professional settings; experience how people from multiple disciplines collaborate within a team.

Multidisciplinary Design Program (MDP) website

Talk to a human:  engin-mdp@umich.edu | (734) 763-0818

Semesters Offered/Recommended: Fall/Winter terms. Some projects have summer work opportunities.

Financial: No Extra Fees, some Paid Experience (summer)

Goes great with

Looking for something to complement your MDP experience? Consider one or more of these:

You might also like

If MDP isn’t quite your style, one of these opportunities may be a better fit.

Resumé builders

Core Professional Competencies

Experiences in the Multidisciplinary Design Program build the professional competencies that employers say they’re looking for, including:

  • Leadership: Apply what you learn in class to engineering design projects.
  • Systems Thinking: Gain the technical and professional skills necessary to thrive in engineering research or professional settings. 
  • Teamwork: Experience how people from multiple disciplines collaborate within a team, and “learn by doing” through participation on research, industry, and student org teams.

If you’re a Michigan Engineering student, use Spire to find out more about how MDP can foster your professional growth. 

Tauber Institute for Global Operations

The Tauber Institute for Global Operations is a joint venture between the University of Michigan’s business and engineering schools, and many industry partners to facilitate cross-disciplinary education in operations management. Well-designed and managed team projects form the cornerstone of the Tauber Institute experience, allowing students to apply their knowledge to real-world settings. 

Tauber Institute for Global Operations website

Talk to a human:  tauberinstitute@umich.edu | (734) 763-8604

Semesters Offered/Recommended: Year-round

Financial: Scholarships available and paid internship

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Looking for something to complement your Tauber Institute for Global Operations experience? Consider one or more of these:

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If Tauber Institute for Global Operations isn’t quite your style, one of these opportunities may be a better fit.

Resumé builders

Core Professional Competencies

Experiences in the Tauber Institute for Global Operations build the professional competencies that employers say they’re looking for, including:

  • Entrepreneurial Mindset: Learn to engage proactive, innovative strategies in various contexts to solve ambiguous problems.
  • Leadership: Get involved in the Student Advisory Board, Global Operations Conference, Community Service Day, and Leadership Advantage program.
  • Teamwork: Gain exposure to multidisciplinary education and team-based action learning opportunities through our “community within a community.”

If you’re a Michigan Engineering student, use Spire to find out more about how Tauber can foster your professional growth. 

Technical Communication Program

The Program in Technical Communication prepares engineering students to communicate, lead, and innovate in an increasingly global and digital environment, ensuring that every Michigan Engineer has the communication skills necessary to succeed in their professional lives. Because it’s never just about the tech. Engineers need to share their solutions, motivate their team, persuade stakeholders, and work across their organization, all with the goal of solving complex, messy, and wicked problems. Through its courses, instruction, and mentorship, the TC Program empowers students to succeed in the complex communication responsibilities they will face in their future engineering careers. You’ll start learning tech comm skills in your ENGR-100 course, and continue throughout your four years in customized courses that integrate communication instruction within each engineering discipline.

Technical Communication Program website

Talk to a human: challom@umich.edu | (734) 764-1427

Semesters Offered/Recommended: Fall and Winter 

Financial: Technical Communication courses are woven into your Immersed academic experience, from your first ENGR-100 course to your senior capstone. 

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Looking for something to complement your Technical Communications experience? Consider one or more of these:

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All of the Immersed Programs have a communication aspect in which students can grow their communication skills.

Resumé builders

Core Professional Competencies

Technical Communication experiences build the professional competencies that employers say they’re looking for, including:

  • Communication: Learn how to communicate with different stakeholders, work effectively with teammates, reflect on your learning and its applications, and ultimately communicate the value of your experience to future employer.
  • Ethics: Fully engage stakeholders to recognize that actions and choices have consequences, and that you must act with integrity and trustworthiness.
  • Empathy: Learn to understand, appreciate, value the perspective of others by reasoning from their premises, assumptions, or ideas.

If you’re a Michigan Engineering student, use Spire to find out more about how our Program in Technical Communication can foster your professional growth.