"My greatest professional accomplishment is completing my MBA while working full-time at Caterpillar. I was fortunate that I only had to attend class once a week on Thursday evenings for four hours but I still had assignments, group projects and papers I had to work on every night which took up the majority of my time outside of work for two years."

 

Prior to working at Purdue, Lu worked at Caterpillar as a Process Engineer. She did a wide variety of tasks during her time at Caterpillar but her main responsibilities were to help plan and coordinate recruiting activities for the Lafayette Engineering Department, such as Caterpillar Day at Purdue, PESC Expo, and Industrial Roundtable. She created monthly budget presentations that analyzed forecasted versus actual spend for 15 different engineering teams. Lu also trained and mentored new Process Engineers and created new employee onboarding materials to help them transition into their new role.

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"My greatest personal accomplishment is running and most importantly finishing 5 marathons. I wish I could tell you that the running part is the most difficult part about running a marathon. In reality it is the mental battle you go through and self-doubt that make it so difficult. After running about 20 miles every part of your body starts to hurt and your mind will tell you that you should quit running. Despite the physical and mental challenges, I am thankful and proud that I have been able to run 5 marathons. My favorite quote that best describes my achievement is from John Hanc, "I’ve learned that finishing a marathon isn’t just an athletic achievement. It’s a state of mind; a state of mind that says anything is possible."