Caroline Tragni: Student leader merges business and engineering

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Caroline Tragni, a fifth-year student majoring in mechanical engineering, carries her leadership qualities in every facet of her life, whether it’s spearheading a capstone project team or becoming the president of the Society of Business and Engineering.


Caroline Tragni
“There are huge borders between engineering and business students. There’s a lot of stereotypes, and I think a lot of it is just people don’t have the information about the other side,” says Tragni.Tragni found out about the student society when her faculty advisor, Peter Rogers, director of the Ohio Innovation Initiative within the college’s capstone program,encouraged her to join. The organization brings together business and engineering students to teach them how to interact with one another.

 At the first meeting the group took ballots for leadership positions; Tragni volunteered for the president position.

“This whole experience, I just really love working on the team and I love motivating people on the team. It’s just really cool to be in an actual leadership role. You learn a lot about it in class, but you don’t always actually get that opportunity,” says Tragni.

Tragni also has taken the lead on her final project: building a small-scale wind turbine with her capstone team.

Tragni calls the project, which she and her classmates have worked on for over a year, one of the most amazing opportunities she has had at Ohio State.

Her team presented the turbine project before the Westerville (Ohio) City Council, but unlike most presentations she has done, this one had a whole new meaning. The people of Westerville were trying to pass an ordinance to ban all small-scale wind turbines, but Tragni’s presentation might have changed their minds.

“We were there as engineers telling them, ‘We have a wind turbine, and if this was actually built to a full-scale model, it would be great and these are all the positives.’ We got feedback afterward and they said, ‘Wow this could actually be a good opportunity,’” says Tragni.

Tragni creates an impact with her leadership qualities and strong work ethic, but her life is now about balance and doing the things she loves to do. Spending last summer in Italy learning the Italian language and studying the country’s culture helped Tragni concentrate on what she wants to do in life and how she can achieve it.

In June, Tragni will head to Orlando, Fla., to start her new job as a member of the Engineering Development Program in the energy sector of Siemens, based in Germany. 

“I really want to focus on things I’m enjoying. And that’s what I’ve been doing. I get as much involved with the Society of Business and Engineering as I can, not because I felt like no one else can do it, but because I love it and I’m passionate about it,” says Tragni.

Katelyn Vitek is a student communications assistant for the College of Engineering.

Category: Students