Tying Academia to Family Legacy
Carla Sganderlla ’19, co-captain of the Cornell Women’s Volleyball team, ranks first in the Ivy League with 3.90 kills per set and has a total of 692 kills in her Big Red career, despite missing her junior season due to an injury.
Sganderlla completed an ILR credit internship last summer at Tramontina in Brazil. Tramontina produces and distributes cookware, houseware and cutlery worldwide.
Sganderlla worked in the marketing department focused on international and digital marketing. “I did market research on certain countries around the world such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Germany and Singapore,” she said.
“The goal of my work was to aid the company in discovering ways to increase their presence in different markets around the world."
She also researched how other companies used social media marketing, and rolled out the use of Instagram to display new product features.
“The projects that I worked on did not feel like work because it was interesting to learn the markets of other countries, which are completely different from the market in the U.S.,” she said.
Her brother, Lucas, received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Cornell in 2017. Their mother worked at Tramontina, their father works at the company in the U.S., and a grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins also work there.
“I felt like it was my turn to experience what Tramontina is like. I grew up hearing about it, but I did not realize how well known and successful the company was until I had my first international internship in Brazil,” Singderlla said.
“My family spoke Portuguese, but I took two semesters of the language at Cornell in order to refine my writing skills. The instruction definitely made writing so much easier.”
Her Brazilian coworkers, she said, made her feel right at home and she quickly made friends.
“The best part of my time there might have been game days, since the World Cup was taking place. The entire office, including the vice president and chief financial officer, would stop working to watch Brazil play,” said Sganderlla, the Houston, Texas, native.
Before her internship, Singderlla was unsure of her career path. Brazil exposed her to a new business culture.
She said she had no idea of the size of the factories in Brazil, how smoothly everything ran or the talent of the workers. “It was eye-opening. We sometimes forget that there are so many other countries out there.”
Now, she is considering a job where she can use her abilities, including speaking Portuguese, to help a company expand into Brazil.
Learn more about ILR international opportunities for undergraduates.