Student News

Stephanie Warner: new GM and Tesla Intern_

 Stefanie Warner, the first Architecture student to become Grand Marshal in about 30 years, is headed to Tesla as an intern for the summer.

Stefanie said a friend who works in California suggested that she apply for an internship with Tesla, and she did it as a “shot in the dark,” uncertain that she would ever hear from the company.  Four interviews later, she was selected for the Architecture, Construction and Global Facilities Internship at Tesla.  Stefanie and two other college interns were selected for this program from tens of thousands of applicants, she was told.

Tesla is building a giga factory in Nevada, and Stefanie has been selected as one of only 3 architecture students from around the country to help with the architectural work on the building.  She said this giga factory (built for the production of lithium ion batteries) will be bigger than all other giga factories combined.  Besides making it huge, she said, Tesla intends to use windmills, solar roofs and other sustainable energy sources for the power.  The intention is to leave “no environmental footprint,” Stefanie said.

Stefanie became interested in Tesla when she was taking courses for a minor in Marketing, and one of her professors assigned some work based on Tesla.  She said the company and its work sparked her interest, and she brought the Tesla ideas back to her architecture courses in Integrated Design Schematic (IDS) and Design Development (DD).  This allowed her to develop a portfolio specific to the electric car company, which she used in her application for the internship.

She will leave May 20^th on a week-long road trip so she can see the USA while en route to Nevada before she starts work May 29^th.  Her internship ends two weeks before the start of Fall semester.  Asked about any advice she might have for other students considering internships at top corporations, she said, “Don’t limit what you can achieve.”

Active in student government since her arrival at Rensselaer, Stefanie wants more Architecture students to take part.  “Greene Building is home, but it shouldn’t be our only home,” she said.  Home for Architecture students should be “all of campus.”  She said she came to RPI because she “fell in love with the courses,” and she stayed because she “fell in love with the community.”  She said there is work to be done here every day to improve the lives of students.

Stefanie said activism is “something that comes naturally to me,” and she envisions continuing to be involved with community work in her future.  But she said she does not want to hold elected office after graduation.

A rising 5^th-year student, Stefanie lives in Long Island, NY, and comes from an architectural family.  Her grandfather was an architect, and her father works in construction.  She said she pursued Architecture because she recognized “how heavily a building’s features can influence how a person feels in that space.”