02/04/2022
It’s shoutout Friday! Meet alumnus Eddie Schodowski, class of 2017! Eddie recently became a project manager at a large automotive supplier. He decided to join a rotational leadership development program after college that let him rotate between a bunch of different roles in Michigan, South Carolina, Boston, and Germany.
Eddie graduated with his electrical engineering degree, and received his P.E. License just this past week. He was a very involved student like most people at Kettering, but actually felt like his most fulfilling involvement wasn’t in clubs, but rather communities of his friends who were doing interesting things outside of a typical club’s boundaries. Some of these included bringing in The Wall Street Journal to speak on campus, bringing in a gubernatorial candidate for an on-campus political discussion, speaking up about sexual assault on campus with others (even when it was hard to do and even when he had a lot to learn about the matter), begging Chipotle corporate to start a location in Flint, working with Dawn the librarian on getting Lynda.com access for all students and evangelizing its adoption, and celebrating the Chinese New Year with his wonderful international student friends who helped him learn Mandarin.
His best advice is to have the self awareness that character growth triumphs everything else. Leaders are followed not because of their prestige or degree or background, but because of their heart. It may not always feel like this is the case in the short-term (especially while in college), but people always see through those who have strong character and those who don’t. It is not easy to always live true to your values because they can be very personal and surprisingly controversial at times, but everyone has the capacity to grow their character and live an ethical, effective, and meaningful life.
