Pros
-Not difficult to understand your job. Most tasks are trivial -32 hours a week is nice during the summer
Cons
-Work culture is weird. Unnecessary drama and talking behind backs is common. It's high school for people with PhD's -No opportunities to go to meetings, interact with managers, or have a lot of interaction with other departments -Your experience is highly dependent on your boss(es) and building you work in. Many office spaces are depressing and many bosses are not a good fit for their interns. There are dozens of tech aide opportunities at 3M. Ask your future manager questions during your interview and make sure you want to commit to their projects. -The actual work you do is menial. Tech Aide input on experimental design is limited. You will inevitably run tests, prep samples, and do the dirty work for the majority of your time at 3M. The pain of your workload is 100% dependent on your manager. -3M hires tech aides because experimental tasks need to be completed. Instead of having Engineers run these tests, this work if off loaded to other employees if an engineer wants to more efficiently spend their time in meetings. Some choose to take this path, while others do their testing themselves. A lab technician would cost 3M too much money, so they choose high school and college students willing to work for poor wages. The pay is not really work the worth you have to do. Take a 3M tech aide job if you are a freshman/sophomore in need of a part time job and initial experience. If you can, work at another company that offers internships with strong pay and work load that will actually show you what being an engineer is all about