Business and law graduate student Samir Patel stands outside the fences of the partially demolished Lansing Craft Centre, a specialized General Motors assembly factory that closed in 2006. Patel was offered an internship with GM in Detroit in December and accepted the offer understanding that its future was uncertain given the economic conditions. In February, Samir’s internship was rescinded by GM and he is now taking a summer class in its place.
Some students are learning to expect the unexpected as the automotive industry, a foundation of Michigan’s economy, crumbles around them. The impact of the bankruptcies at Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp., has not passed by MSU and instead is hitting hard on the lives of students.
After accepting an internship offer from GM, Samir Patel, a business and law graduate student, felt secure about his plans for the summer.
“When I got the offer I thought, ‘Yes, I have an internship, now I don’t have to worry about it,’ Patel said.
In hopes of fulfilling an internship requirement, Patel attended a career fair in September and interviewed with GM the next day. The company extended an offer in November and Patel accepted in December, even though at that point, GM’s future was unclear.
“I knew the trouble GM was in, but I knew that I didn’t know what was going to happen in the economy in the future,” he said. “I had something in my hand and I said, ‘I’m going to take it right now.’”
He turned away offers from other companies as he accepted and planned on working for GM.
“It was the offer on the table at the time and I really did think about it for a couple of weeks before I accepted it,” Patel said.
In late February, Patel received a phone call and learned his internship offer had been rescinded. Patel said it might have been because of his limited work experience, which was in bankruptcy law, that cost him the job.
“I knew (losing the internship) was a possibility,” he said.
“Since then I have been working for whatever I could. I never actually found another internship.”
Even though he lost a job, Patel is not resentful towards GM or others who kept their internships.
“GM was already in a position where they had to make certain cuts,” Patel said. “But right from the beginning my initial thought was that GM was better off than bankruptcy.”
A ripple effect
Almost 80 percent of auto-related jobs are located in Michigan, Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing, said.
“The downturn in the auto industry has to affect students,” he said.
With all of the jobs in the state, students family members with ties to the auto industry are feeling impacts, even if they are not working for the Big Three.
Suppliers for the auto companies are hurting as much as the workers on the line, said Kevin Beard, East Lansing city councilman.
“They’re not just having wages cut,” he said. “They are closing their doors left and right.”
Having a parent who counted on GM and companies like Delphi Corporation as customers for business, Ali Aqel, a computer engineering graduate student, had always seen the impact that the ups and downs in the auto industry had on his family.
“When the auto industry was good, my dad’s business was great,” Aqel said. “When it started to tank, my dad’s business started to tank.”
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Aqel would not disclose where his father worked.
Aqel said his dad never misses an opportunity to talk about the way things used to be.
“He goes to all these factories and sees that there really isn’t much going on right now,” he said.
“(His dad) says, ‘Every time I come around here, I get a tear in my eye.’”
Scholarships and need-based financial aid help Aqel stay in school, but he is trying to help his parents out as much as possible because his dad’s business is suffering.
“I’m doing my best to take as much burden off my parents as possible,” Aqel said. “I have to work harder and work more hours on the job than friends of mine in order to support myself.”
Not only does Aqel plan on helping his family while he is in school, he’ll also pitch in afterward, helping to support his family until his dad retires.
Aqel is not resentful toward anyone, but as a computer engineering student, he wants to see more innovation in the industry.
“I’m more resentful toward a lack of innovation,” he said. “(It) has created a situation where American car companies are unable to make the smaller cars that people want.”
There are two sides to the story, Aqel said. His dad’s business might be on the rocks, but his education is not.
“I get to go to school for pretty much free and the catch-22 of it is, it’s because my dad’s business kind of sucks right now,” he said.
Lucky or not?
Moving to a different country with hopes of working for the auto industry sounds like a good plan, unless that industry happens to collapse.
A former GM employee in Mexico, Carlos Beltran, a marketing graduate student, moved to the U.S. to be closer to the auto industry in Michigan.
He soon found that his internship goals were unreachable and instead of giving up, he changed focus.
“I decided to change the focus of my search and then apply my knowledge to other fields,” Beltran said. “I had to change my decision in the middle of the road.”
Although he has an internship at Sears this summer, Beltran does not consider it an equal replacement for an internship at GM.
He might have avoided some problems by not working in the auto industry, making it a good decision to look for another internship.
“I would say that it was a good change,” he said. “Lucky probably would have been if I had been in the industry.”
Still hoping to work in the auto industry again, Beltran is unsure how successful he will be at finding a place in the struggling industry.
“I’m not worried; I think that I have a good background,” he said.
“I love the auto industry. I love it and that’s why I would love to go back there, but I also realize that there are big changes that are coming and I know that those changes will take some time.”
This might be a good time for the auto companies to re-evaluate things that might have contributed to their decline, Beltran said.
“I think it’s a good opportunity,” he said.
“Your perspective changes and you realize how many of the little things were not working properly.”
Not all bad
For some students, luck has not quite run out, at least for the meantime.
Working as an intern for GM this summer, Clarisa Gamarra, a finance graduate student, was worried when she accepted her internship offer.
“I was kind of scared because that was when the bubble exploded,” she said. “They were saying that GM might disappear.”
As an international student, Gamarra said she thought her chances of finding an internship were slim. When she heard that some offers were being rescinded, she prepared for the worst.
“I was expecting to be the next one because all of the accepted students, they were Americans, and I was the only international student,” she said.
Times are even harder now for the auto industry than when she accepted, but Gamarra is optimistic about her job and future with the auto companies.
“Even though they filed for bankruptcy, it’s still a reorganization process,” she said. “Nothing is going to happen at least until I finish the internship.”
Hoping to still be around when GM emerges from its bankruptcy process, Gamarra said she would still consider a full-time offer.
It’s obvious
Making a conscious effort to cut back on spending is something physics junior Alex Rovinski is working on.
His dad is part of the legal staff at GM, and in light of the current situation, Rovinski is having trouble finding a job and paying for textbooks.
“We’re trying to cut back on spending however we can,” he said.
Calling Michigan the “self-titled auto capital of the world,” Rovinski said he is not surprised at how much Michigan and the MSU community is suffering.
“When the auto industry is not doing well, Michigan is not doing well,” he said.
