The world’s largest aerospace corporation, Boeing, chose seven juniors to be part of an extensive eight-week unpaid internship program this summer, in which they will participate in engineering projects and learn more about the fields of science and math.
Throughout the internship, juniors Arani Bhattacharyay, Michelle Tran, Jigar Bhakta, Stefan Palombo, Zach Griffin, Ryan Gulland, and Madison Miketa will be paired with an experienced mentor who is an expert in his or her scientific field. The fields offered to summer interns include Spacecraft Structure and Design Integration, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Contamination and Satellite Development. The interns are required to work between 125 and 150 hours with their mentor throughout the program.
“We get to pick and rank the four mentors that we want to work with from a list of 57,” Bhakta said. “The locations of these internship sites vary from Torrance to Seal Beach, though most of us will spend our summer in the El Segundo branch.”
To apply for the Boeing internship, the students had to fulfill multiple requirements. Applicants must be 16 years old and United States citizens. In addition to writing an essay about what they would gain from working at Boeing, interns needed to have an overall unweighted GPA of at least 3.5 and have completed Algebra 3/4 with Trigonometry by the end of sophomore year with an A in both semesters to be eligible for the internship.
“I am looking forward to the program, especially being paired with an experienced mentor,” Tran said. “Working on a project with the mentors will help us learn and be inspired.”
Prospective interns also must complete an Advanced Placement science course by the end of junior year and get letters of recommendation from an AP science teacher and AP math teacher.
“When I write letters of recommendation I try to highlight the applicants’ skills and things that they do well in science,” AP biology teacher Jessica Bledsoe said. “I think that it gives the person whose choosing the intern an insight into who the student really is.”
According to Bledsoe, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and other companies of scientific prestige look highly on this internship when it is on a resume.
“We get to spend our summer in another way than just sitting around,” Bhakta said. “I cannot wait to work with highly educated and interesting mentors.”
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