ParisTech Alumni : Meet Bruna Rodrigues, who spent one year at AgroParisTech

Can you introduce yourself?

My name is Bruna Rodrigues, I’m originally from Brazil and I studied at AgroParisTech for the 2007-2008 school year, so the 2nd year of the engineer’s cycle. Currently I’m a Research Strategist within the Customer Insights team at John Deere and I live in the US with my husband, 7 year-old daughter and 8 year-old dog.

Could you tell about your career path ?

As soon as I graduated, I started working at Dow AgroSciences (currently Corteva after the merger with DuPont and subsequent spin-off). I held positions in sales and marketing, and 4 years later I left Dow to pursue my MBA in the US. I went to school full time for 2 years to get my master’s degree and once I was back in Brazil I started working for Kynetec, a global market research company focused on agriculture and animal health. I started as a Market Research Manager and when I left the company, I was in charge of the whole custom research team in Brazil. Our family moved to the US and that’s when I started working at John Deere, where I’m part of the global research team.

Why did you choose to study in a ParisTech school to become an engineer?

AgroParisTech had a partnership with my university in Brazil, University of São Paulo, along with many other French universities. I wanted to study in France and started to look for the opportunities USP offered and chose AgroParisTech because when I looked at the program, I believed it would be the university to give me a more holistic experience (academia, professional summer internship, farm internship, SIA – International Agriculture Fair - participation, hands on disciplines etc).

Could you define in 3 words what is a ParisTech engineer?

Flexible, resourceful, prepared.

What has the education at AgroParisTech brought you in your career?

Aside from the technical knowledge, my séjour gave me the opportunity to develop other essential professional and life skills through many different ways : I loved how we had group projects in most classes and we had to explain our thinking, stand in front of a class and take questions, put ourselves out there and weigh in on our work along with our colleagues (that was not the case in Brazil, where we were mostly evaluated through tests). On one discipline, we traveled around the south as groups interviewing farmers, listening to their challenges and having a hands on experience on evaluating the economic viability of the farm. I was a translator at the Salon D’Agriculture, met wonderful people who hosted me later in their farm for 5 weeks for my internship and are in my life to this day.

In addition, AgroParisTech host students from all over the world, so in a way, my year has taught me cultural awareness, to consider different cultures and ways of thinking when going about out day-to-day interactions.

What would you say to an international student who hesitates to come to a ParisTech school?

Do not hesitate. Seize the opportunity to experience education abroad. Every country is different in their ways and being able to not only learn the technical skills but invaluable life and dare I say, leadership skills, as our world becomes more and more diverse and complex. Studying at ParisTech will help you develop yourself as a professional as a whole. Besides that, it’s true what they say : Paris is a wonderful city and you will have lots of fun.