Hello! My name is Kaylie Hill and I am currently a senior in the MIS program. I will be graduating in December. Yay! I am interning at Altec, Inc. in Birmingham, AL in the Business Intelligence Department. Altec came to campus and spoke at an AIMS(Alabama Information Management Society) meeting last spring. I am not going to lie, I am usually not interested in working for some of the huge companies that come and talk to us at AIMS and thank goodness I didn’t miss the Altec one! Altec has 4 different divisions within their Information Services Department. Four people were there to talk to us that night, one from each division. When Mrs. Moller started talking about business intelligence and how they used it at Altec, I was immediately fascinated by how it was so different than any of my other internship opportunities. I spoke with her after the meeting and gave her my resume. Needless to say, I accepted her offer and here I am working for a great company.
Altec is a manufacturing company; producing cranes, chippers, and many other types of work trucks. I have done internships in the telecommunications field and the medical field, so I thought it would be cool to switch it up a bit and work in the manufacturing field. Turns out I really like it! It’s very fast paced and exciting! My main project is to develop an application to show how EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is used throughout the company and also to troubleshoot any errors within an EDI transaction. I am working with current data that changes every day which is challenging and exciting at the same time! I am excited to learn how a big company like Altec uses EDI in their business every day.
Finding a place to live in Birmingham in my price range was hard. Especially since I only needed a place for two months and no apartment complex would rent to me for a reasonable price. I live in Cullman, AL, which is about 45 minutes away, so I just decided to commute every day. I never realized how early 5:30 am was!
Sometimes internships are hard because you are only there for a short amount of time and once you finally feel comfortable, the internship is over. The first day and few weeks of an internship can be scary and overwhelming. I have had internships in the past that back this up! However, Altec was ready for me when I got here and had everything set up for me. It was nice to feel that warm welcome! The first few days I went through training on software they were using and just everyday life at Altec. I felt fully prepared to tackle the internship head on. It feels great to get up every morning and not dread going to work. It goes without saying; I am having a great time this summer working for Altec!
UA Management Information Systems 