An Engineering dual degree from Butler is propelling Alyssa Setnar ’16 to infinity and beyond.

The Columbus, Ohio native headed to Los Angeles in June to begin working for Millennium Space Systems, a satellite manufacturing company, as a spacecraft structural engineer. She interned with Millennium previously.

“I’m a part of the team that goes all the way from the napkin sketch to the proposal all the way to manufacturing,” she said. “I’m really excited to be a part of the entire process.”

That process started at Butler, when she found out she could get an Engineering degree through Butler’s dual degree program with IUPUI. Setnar is Butler’s first graduate in the program’s Motorsports Engineering concentration. In her final semester, she worked with other students on a prototype race car for the International Society of Automotive Engineering’s student design initiative.

“I got that big-school degree from Purdue at IUPUI’s campus, but I really fell in love with Butler’s small campus feel and the people that I met here,” she said. “I feel really lucky that I got both.”

Setnar got involved early on at Butler. She arrived a week before Welcome Week her first-year for the Ambassadors of Change (AOC) program.

She was so impressed with and transformed by the program that she served as an AOC team leader for the next three years. It’s that passion for helping others that sets Butler students apart, Setnar said.

“Whenever I’m out, whether I’m volunteering, or at a restaurant, or just wearing a Butler shirt out while I’m shopping, the community recognizes that the people that are coming from Butler are really genuine and smart and interested in caring,” she said.