Scholarship Spotlight: Ryan Nemethy, MHRIR 2015
The promise of graduation and the start of bright careers is just a few weeks away for our December 2015 graduating class. Just over year ago, they were just entering the program and nervous about their courses and recruiting prospects, and now they are learning the location of their first job and making plans to begin their lives after graduation.
Ryan Nemethy is one of those rising graduates. He elected to come to LER after finishing his undergraduate degree at Illinois and learning about LER through fellow graduate Michelle Gao, MHRIR 14. This decision was made easier with a scholarship award sponsored by The Boeing Company. His early exposure to Boeing as their scholar helped him to choose their internship for the summer of 2015.
“Boeing is an impressive engineering company in a fascinating industry,” he says. “I saw so many career opportunities for me there, in manufacturing, specialist and corporate roles. Additionally, with the defense and commercial businesses, it was almost like taking a job with two different companies and all of the associated opportunities.”
His summer afforded him exposure to high-level leadership, including the VP of HR for Commercial at Boeing and the President of Commercial Aviation Services. He was welcomed into one-on-one conversations with those leaders and offered project support throughout the summer. The internship gave him a great balance between project work, generalist duties and job shadows. As a result, he accepted an offer to join Boeing’s HR development program, which will offer him five Seattle-based roles over the next three years.
“I’m so glad I chose to finish my college career at LER. The pay-it-forward culture and close-knit community have been wonderful, as have the excellent career development opportunities and exposure to top companies. This really has been life-changing, and I’m eternally grateful. I look forward to helping lead more students down this path,” says Nemethy. “Boeing helped to make this all possible, and I can’t wait to start my career there.”