蘑菇短视频interior design student lands internship with NASA
Alicia Littejohn, an intern on the Facility Utilization and Planning team at NASA鈥檚 Marshall Space Flight Center, is pictured in the Office of Center Operations looking at carpet samples for an office redesign.
Alicia Littlejohn has always been fascinated with space, so when there was an opportunity to intern with NASA, she jumped at the chance.
But the 蘑菇短视频 senior isn鈥檛 your typical NASA intern. She鈥檚 not studying physics, engineering or any other STEM-related field.
She鈥檚 an interior design major.
Littlejohn works with the Facility Utilization and Planning team at NASA鈥檚 Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, helping keep track of every space at the center and how to best use those spaces.
鈥淭hey keep track of who it's allocated to and what projects are being done there in case we need to move anything around or any new projects come in, we know what space we have available to use for that project,鈥� Littlejohn said.
The Conover native came across the opportunity to work at NASA on social media with a post that featured some of the non-traditional majors the federal agency took on. Littlejohn submitted an application and much to her surprise, she got an interview.
鈥淚 was shocked. I was so excited. I was ecstatic to just have the interview, so I put in a lot of effort, like doing my research for the interview and everything,鈥� Littlejohn said.
However, two weeks later, Littlejohn was informed that the position was given to another candidate, so she continued on with her internship search. Eventually, she accepted an interior design internship in Chicago, but later on, NASA reached back out.
They said another position with another team was open, and they鈥檇 love for her to apply again. She did, even having a mock interview with WCU鈥檚 Center for Career and Professional Development to prepare, and a month later, she got her offer letter from NASA.
So far this summer, Littlejohn has been helping the space utilization team determine if a space fits another team鈥檚 needs and conduct building audits.
鈥淲e go around and check every single numbered space in every building at Marshall and try to keep track of what that space is and what it's being used for,鈥� Littlejohn said.
鈥淲e then send up that report to NASA Headquarters, so they know that we're using our space efficiently, because that's the main goal we're working towards is to make sure we're doing everything efficiently to try to lower our footprint.鈥�
Littlejohn said having several projects going on at once in her classes has helped her with multi-tasking in her internship.
As she returns to Cullowhee in the fall, Littlejohn has a different outlook on her classes and what she might want to do with her career.
鈥淚 think it definitely will give me a lot more confidence within my classes and everything,鈥� Littlejohn said. "It's kind of made me take a step back from other stuff that I thought I would want to do, but now having experienced this, working in a small firm, for example, would be so much different from this.鈥�
鈥淎nd now that I've done this, I don't know if I would enjoy the smaller environment as much.鈥�