On July 7^th I officially joined the General Electric family under the Information Management Leadership Program and I couldn’t be happier. It’s hard to believe that a year ago I had never heard of ‘IMLP’.

Back in September 2008, during my senior year, a fellow CS major, co-worker and friend of mind invited me to a GE carrier information session that was being held later that night. At this point I was not very focused on looking for a full-time job but was putting most of my energies toward organizing my senior project in London (pictures here!). But my friend convinced me to go by saying the words that can motivate any college student - “they’ll have free food” – so I decided to tag along.

My initial thoughts were that the information session was going to be geared toward Mechanical Engineers (since a number of ME’s from WPI have ended up at GE Aviation). But they were talking about something called “IMLP” – what it was, types of projects you work on and the general life style of a person in this program. As soon as I heard the words “rotations”, “technology-focused projects”, “leadership” and “rapid growth” I was sold! After the event I collected some business cards and forwarded my resume off to the campus recruiters that very night,

Countless all-nighters doing homework, three non-GE internships, one international project, three in-person and 2 phone interviews and one Junior bootcamp later…I was working on my first exciting project as part of GE Capital out of Danbury, CT.

It’s still kind of funny when I think about it - I came for the free food but stayed for the opportunity to grow and learn.