By Ariana Gevov
Staff Writer
Boeing, an engineering company for aircrafts, is offering a summer internship for Mira Costa students from June through August 2012.
Boeing usually offers the summer program at the Boeing in Orange Country but is now hosting it in Los Angeles for the first time. Boeing contacted several high schools in the area to see if they would be interested in having students participate in the internship. Along with Costa, schools such as Peninsula High School and El Segundo High School were offered the program.
“This is the first time we have been offered to be apart of the internship,” College and Career Center Counselor Katherine Folkman said. “It is a great opportunity for students who sign up for it.”
To be eligible for the internship, the student must be at least 16 years of age, a U.S. citizen, have a minimum unweighted GPA of 3.5, have completed Algebra 3-4 with Trig by the end of sophomore year with an A, and have completed one Advanced Placement science class by the end of the year with an A the first semester. To apply, they must be going into senior year with two teacher reccomendations.
“I do go over some of the applications,” Costa AP Biology Teacher Jessica Whitlock said. “In addition to the requirements, I look for students who are interested in the subject matter and would actually like to go into this as a career choice. For the students who do it, it is really opening them up to a lot of new things.”
In preparation for the internship, the students have to partake in a training program. After that, they are assigned to a mentor who will work with them the whole summer. Each mentor has a different job so each student will have different tasks.
“It is so great for high school to experience working in this kind of environment,” Systems Engineer Veronica Gathercole. “They will get to see day to day work and how everything is processed.”
Before Costa students could apply for the program, the Mira Costa School Board had to be in favor of the internship. It was also mutually decided that if the student preformed in the program, then it would go on their transcript and they would get course credits.
“This is an outstanding program,” System Reliability Engineer Lisa Krouse said. “We need people who are interested in the math and sciences because they can use what they are learning in school and apply it by designing a product.
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