As the summer blazes on, UA students across the U.S. are engaged in real-world internships, from mapping fiber optic routes in Iowa to conducting political research on Capitol Hill. Here are four students who are doing legendary things.
Telecom Engineering at Berkshire Hathaway Energy
Hanniel Dunn, a rising senior from the Bay Area of California, has been working with the telecoms division of a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, a major utility that distributes electricity and gas to Iowa, South Dakota and parts of Illinois. His work involves mapping and planning fiber optic routes and upgrading and modernizing networking equipment to meet cybersecurity requirements. Dunn has also forecasted future project budgets and assessed radio communications modernization options for workers.
In his work, Dunn draws on a unique combination of cutting-edge training from his UA business cybersecurity major and a broad background in the liberal arts from his experience as a Blount Liberal Arts scholar. He credits his time at Culverhouse College of Business, especially the experienced professors and GBA classes, in helping him develop deep business knowledge and the ability to communicate professionally. And he praises the Blount Scholars program for teaching him to synthesize information and “make something useful out of it.”
“And now coming to my telecom engineering role, where I’m going to have to look at maps, look at technician reports, look at field engineer photos or the lines of code that are coming up on my command console, and take all of that and be able to form a cohesive picture, I think that’s something that the Blount liberal arts program has really helped me with,” he said.
Dunn said the work is building the foundation for an exciting future. He appreciates the way his internship is allowing him to gain experience in both corporate and business function areas, and the opportunities that experience will open. Job listings with required experience do not intimidate him.
“So that’s just been really empowering, and just really confidence boosting, too, to be able to look at those required years of experience or required experience, and be able to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got that!’,” he said. “And I do.”
Operations Management at Lockheed Martin
Rising junior Gabriela Contos lived in Portugal last summer, and when she told her Portuguese neighbors where she went to school, they knew how to respond: “Roll Tide!” For Contos, this kind of brand recognition is invaluable. This summer, the Elizabeth, Colorado, native is leveraging her UA education in operations management — she is double-majoring in it and general business while also pursuing an accelerated master’s in operations management — in an internship with Lockheed Martin.
Contos likes the math in operations management, but also the problem-solving element. “There are right answers,” she explained, “but there are also many ways to get to the right answer. And since I like being productive, there’s always ways to make something better and more efficient.”
As the president-elect of the UA Women in Operations Management Society, Contos understands she is entering a male-dominated field. In fact, she credits the female teaching assistant in her introductory operations management class with encouraging her to go for it. From there, there was no going back.
Currently an intern in the finance department at Lockheed Martin, Contos appreciates the way her UA education positions her as a valuable asset, even early in her career. Her future employer, she explained, can invest in her or other OM majors and put them anywhere in the company, wherever they are needed. “If this specific role I’m doing is not needed in the future, they don’t have to hire someone else,” she said. “They can just move me because of all the different skills that I will have developed.
“It’s making me a lot more comfortable in a path that I’m taking,” Contos went on. “I’m not in the dark anymore. I know what I have to do, even though I haven’t done yet. I know what I have to do and how to accomplish it.”
Coding at Netflix
Next time you are scrolling for your next bingeworthy show, spare a thought for rising senior Holland Henderson-Boyer, who is interning this summer with the Netflix team that produces trailers. While the computer science and math double-major cannot go into specific details about her project, she can say that she is developing her technical skills and learning engineering best practices through code review.
“I’ve gotten lots of feedback on the readability of my code and I’ve learned a lot about the testing process, writing different kinds of tests before getting to production,” she said. “And that’s another thing that I’ve gotten to do in this internship: actually shipping to production. So this is my first time really getting to do that in an internship, and it’s been really cool and rewarding.”
The Maryland native is also a Randall Research Scholar at UA, where she has been able to study things like the economics of how climate impacts human behavior. “I couldn’t really find a program anywhere else that let you do meaningful research so early and kind of incorporated it into the academic experience,” Henderson-Boyer said. That sort of background in multi-disciplinary research was part of what caught the eye of Netflix executives.
What advice would she give others who want to pursue an internship like hers? First, pursue internships in multiple places throughout college. That will help you discover what kind of corporate culture fits you. Start early, apply widely and don’t be discouraged by rejection. And in your résumé, get specific about what you contributed to projects, not just responsibilities you’ve had. Focus on transferrable skills, no matter where they come from. “I’m involved in astrobotics, which is a design team that basically builds and programs a robot to mine [lunar soil]. I’ve learned lots of software engineering skills from that. And there’s basically no barrier to entry to get in. Totally new freshmen could just join that and start gaining those skills,” she said.
Political Research at Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
Future lawmaker Chloe Parchman, a rising junior English major from Hoover is spending the summer in Washington, D.C., and interning with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. After hearing about the opportunity from a social media influencer she follows, Parchman applied, though with some nervousness, since she heard the internship was highly competitive. Determined to stand out, she put a lot of work into her application video, adding cinematic effects and footage of her at the UA law school and mock trial room. She took risks, balancing competence and excitement with humor. Plus she wrote a strong application essay.
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation interns are brought to D.C., housed, and paid for the summer, but placed in different offices on Capitol Hill. Parchman works for Congresswoman Terri Sewell, where she has done everything from research memos and calls with constituents, to errands and training new interns. Additionally, the interns participate in professional development, after-work activities and Zoom calls. “Our schedule is crazy,” Parchman laughed. Recently, at a rally that was covered by Fox News, she was featured as one of the interns invited to speak.
Parchman’s internship represents her first time on an extended stay outside of Alabama. She notices the differences between Tuscaloosa and a big town like D.C. in challenges like navigating public transportation. But she has grown to love both the city and the work, and the possibilities that are opening for her.
“I didn’t know a lot about how legislation was passed prior to coming up here,” Parchman said. “And I’ve not only got a chance to see firsthand how things happen, like checks and balances — not only do I understand that a lot more now, but it has opened the door for me to potentially have a career in politics. It’s kind of opened my mind to I could really be anything that I wanted to be, you know?”