For the past three months, I've had the absolute pleasure of interning with one of the Big Three automotive companies in the nation. Even as an engineer, I never really imagined myself working for an automotive company — I mean, I knew close to nothing about cars, so after landing this internship, I started to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable overload of information to come my way.

Now, there were a lot of things I was expecting to get out of this: experience in body engineering, exposure to a Fortune 500 company, learning about the advances in vehicle technology and many other nerdy engineering things. As I began my internship, I was learning more than I thought I would, yet I was barely surviving, living in Detroit — 10 hours away from my beloved Virginia and Virginian friends. I was homesick and found myself having a hard time making new friends. But a lot can happen in 12 weeks, and as the end of my my internship approached, I found it harder leave not only an amazing company, but also an amazing group of people.

From day one, all I could think about was how amazing it would feel to be home again. All I could think about was how much I missed my family and how much FOMO I was getting from Snapchats of all of my friends hanging out together every weekend. All I could think about was how much I wanted to get out of Michigan. But like a flip of a switch, all of that changed. I found a community that made this foreign state my home away from home. I found people who continually pushed me out of my comfort zone to make the most of these 12 weeks. I found a company that treated me like more than an intern and always had my best interests at heart.

By the last half of my 12 weeks, the bad dream that I thought I was living in was no longer bad. The area was deemed bearable, but it was the people that changed it all for me. I never could have imagined meeting such caring people and becoming as close of friends with them in such a short amount of time. Out of everything that came out of this internship, the two things I least expected were how difficult it would be to say goodbye and the amount heartache I would feel. As interns, we all shared the same worries we had for our futures: Can we stand being so far away from home? Do we want to go an pursue a master's degree before our first full-time offer? Are we even passionate about what we're doing this summer? We all confided in each other. We understood the struggles and difficult decisions facing us and our future. And we all came to the realization that this moment, this summer that literally drove us all together from across the nation, would never be the same once we all left.

So it was only expected that as I turned in my laptop and badge and hugged the friends who had become my family for the last time, my heart became heavy and my tears became harder to push back. Call me emotional and dramatic if you want, but the pain I felt — no, the pain that I still feel — is very much real. I miss the people who made me laugh when work became dry. I miss the people who gave me hope when my future felt unclear and lost. I miss the people who reminded me every day that we were all meant to do something great with our lives and motivated us to get there. And it's hard to walk away from a summer filled with such unique and incredible people and pretend nothing was there.

While my heart is still heavy and the pain is still there, I am forever grateful for the 12 weeks I was given in Detroit. I am forever grateful for the experience I had with such a large and continuously growing industry. And I'll never be able to describe how grateful I am for the relationships I've made and the individuals who have changed and become such a large part of my life.