Amber Marek, now a junior at Michigan Technological University, describes herself as the stereotypical student who was good at math and science in high school. While attending Grand Rapids High School, she played in the band and achieved high marks.

     “I was a nerd in high school,” she recalls. “I had a couple of good friends, but for the most part I was just acquaintances with everyone. There were few people that I really felt like I could be myself around. As a teenager, I thought I was just different.”

     When she arrived at college, that changed. “ I was suddenly surrounded by people with similar passions and interests. I found myself relating to many people in all aspects of life.”

     When Michigan Tech hosted its annual internship fair in the spring of 2007, Marek had not planned to seek an internship. Her resume waited for her on her computer, incomplete. She promised herself that she would finish it in a few weeks. As her friends browsed the list of employers, one name shot off of the page to Marek.

     “When I saw Cirrus [Design] was on the list I went out and bought fancy resume paper and finished my resume in an hour,” she recalls with a laugh. “I bought a nice black jacket. And I ran into the job fair. I don’t even remember what I said during the interview, but when I walked away I felt like I had the job already.”

     And she did. Marek began her career in aerospace engineering the following summer as an intern at Cirrus Design in Duluth. As a resident of northern Minnesota, Cirrus was a name she knew well. She was excited to be involved with a local company that fit her academic interests so well.

     Marek quickly learned that a job in aerospace engineering was vastly different from the work she was used to in the classroom. On her first day her supervisor threw a pile of problems on her desk and set her to work.

     “When I first got to Cirrus I thought my work was going to be like homework assignments: 1, 2, 3 this is how it goes,” she says. “At the beginning I was afraid of being wrong. I almost set myself up for failure. I thought I was supposed to know how to do everything, and I was afraid to ask people. When I did ask the problem I thought was simple ended up being a lot harder than anyone expected.”

     By the end of the summer it was clear that these problems, concerned with fuel systems, were still far from being done. Marek had worked hard all summer and had learned that the work of an engineer doesn’t end with the solution of a single problem, but instead is an evolution.

      Marek was scheduled to return to Michigan at the end of August, but her work was not yet complete. She asked Cirrus if she could stay through the fall semester as a co-op student. Though Cirrus had never done such a program, they agreed. Instead of returning to classes in the fall, Marek continued working on the fuel system while taking a few classes.

     Over the six months, Marek saw much about herself change. As she was given more responsibility, her confidence grew. At first afraid to ask for help, she was able to simply ask a co-worker or call a product supplier for the information that she needed.

     “I learned that engineering is 80 percent communication,” she explained. “At school you are assigned a problem and told to do it alone. At Cirrus the more brain power you pull together the better off you are.” 

     In talking with her colleagues Marek also discovered the answer is not always clear to even the experienced engineer. 

      “As an engineer you have to be able to admit when you are stumped and be able to come back to it with a fresh mind,” she said. “At Cirrus we had a fuzz ball table in the office. You go and play for ten minutes and come back laughing. You take your mind off of the problem for a few minutes and new solutions appear.”

     The idea of taking a break was not something that was new to Marek. In 2006 she took a breather and went to Denmark through an Itasca Community College program. During the semester she took a number of general education classes and did a lot of traveling. Marek set off for Europe at the end of her second year at ICC, before transferring to Michigan Tech to complete her engineering degree. She recalls her workload was causing her to question if engineering was really the right field for her. But the time in Denmark ended up being Marek’s personal fuzz ball table.

     “Being a student is nothing like being an engineer, many people have told me that. It is something that I have to get through. Being in Denmark allowed me to go back to school with an open mind. I couldn’t operate without taking a break.”

     But this philosophy wasn’t always something that Marek followed.  “I was always afraid of taking a break,” she explained “It felt like giving up. But it’s really giving yourself a chance to re-explore.”

     Through college and her work experience at Cirrus Marek has learned that the answer is not always crystal clear and an occasional break can lead you down the right path.

      “It was very scary at first, to walk into a problem blindly,” she said. “But it is exciting now, I can go into something I don’t know and figure it out.”

      Marek’s enthusiasm and constant dedication to asking for help in finding the hidden solutions have paid off: She was offered and accepted a job with Cirrus Design.