In this Scholar-Athlete Spotlight, we are featuring Deirdre Miller of Florida Tech women's basketball. This summer, the Charlotte, North Caroline, native is gaining meaningful experience at an internship in his desired field. We caught up with Miller to learn more about the incredible opportunity.

What company are you interning for this summer? What is your title and role with the company?
"I'm currently interning for Formic, an automation company focused in Illinois and I assist with Automation engineering tasks."

What drew you to this internship? What steps did you have to take to earn your position within the company?
"I was drawn to this company because of the hands-on floor experience it offers as well as the smaller company size so that I could develop more meaningful connections with my boss and coworkers."

What are some exciting tasks or projects that you have been able to be a part of?
"Some exciting tasks I was given have been assembling a control panel for one of our robots as well as programming the automation abilities of another."
 
What is your major at Florida Tech? Why did you choose this direction for your education and is this something you always wanted to pursue?
"I am currently studying aerospace engineering at Florida Tech. I've always been drawn to space exploration because of my dad loving it as well, and I really wanted to go into engineering, so the prospect of being able to design and build rockets was a huge draw to the major."

How has being a scholar-athlete prepared you for the work you are currently doing in your internship? What skills have you taken from your time as a scholar-athlete that help you in your internship?
" Being an athlete has helped me to perfect my time management skills as well as develop my self-discipline and become more responsible overall."

How is your internship preparing you for a career you would like to do after graduation?
" I hope this internship will help give me insight and experience on the inner-workings of technical companies and provide valuable relationships with the people that make it function."

What advice would you give another scholar-athlete/prospective scholar-athlete who is looking to pursue a similar path?
" My advice to current and prospective scholar athletes in similar fields is to keep pushing. It gets hard and overwhelming fast, but no matter what, you have to keep going. In the long run, it will work out, just don't give up."