Senior Maria Bonucchi, who is majoring in public relations, maintained large projects as a summer global services communication intern at Tenneco.
Her tasks included project management where she created, maintained and executed various communications plans for employees. This included researching their audiences, creating a new social intranet and formulating a stylebook for the space. A smaller part of her role included overseeing the marketing, vendor recruitment and budget for their largest summer event.
“Part of the marketing strategy to promote the summer event included flyers,” Bonucchi said. “Although they took the least amount of time to create, it was so rewarding to see materials I created hanging up in the Tenneco offices and engaging with our audience.”
An obstacle that she faced was taking on multiple large projects simultaneously while learning to be well organized with her days in order to meet deadlines and get all approvals.
“I learned how to work effectively under pressure without letting my concerns get the best of me,” Bonucchi said. “I also learned that having a plan and sticking to it is the best thing you can do.”
Bonucchi encourages those wanting to work in the automotive industry on the communications side that it’s okay to not know all the terms and to not be discouraged by it.
“I grew up around three big automotive companies and I was still learning new lingo and acronyms around various cars and their parts,” Bonucchi said. “Just because you don't know everything about how a vehicle works doesn't mean you can't be successful. Take the time to listen to your peers and learn to turn their knowledge into something useful for the organization.”
By Olivia Austin