An Internship That Offers More Than Learning

Who better to take on the challenge of an internship in a hybrid format than Tech Core interns?

In order to navigate the process and get the same in-person feeling, all 90 student interns plus the Tech Core staff began using a platform called Discord that allowed them to be connected virtually at all times while not having to be solely in a chat room like a Zoom call—all while they were all in different parts of the world.

Interns were put into groups for the 10-week program and tasked with coming up with a technological invention of their own.

Some of the 25 projects included:

• a form of augmented reality where students could move different characters on a screen using their hands and a camera
• a 360-degree building scale that you could see through your phone
• a video game and
• a 360-degree virtual reality tour of the different atmospheres in Biosphere 2

The Tech Core Summer Internship offers students exciting and cutting edge opportunity to learn about the field of technology—whether they may be a management information systems major or a marketing major—and who want to learn how to code as well as market their projects.

“The students don’t need math or tech skills,” says Ash Black, director of Tech Core. “They need tenacity, attitude and desire and they will succeed.”

At the end of the internship, all interns receive a certificate of completion, but leave with much more than that. Interns leave as part of a community where they learned tech skills that some of them might not have thought possible for themselves.

“It felt more of a community than any other class,” says Dori Enzler ’23 BSBA (Business Management). “It was a very welcoming and wholesome experience.”