TechFutures Grads Amaze Intel
Grads Amaze Intel
TechFutures is proud to announce our first summer internships for the Class of 2005
In an extraordinary demonstration of composure and skills, five senior students from the TechFutures program in the WCCUSD – the only school district in California invited to apply outside of the greater Sacramento area – applied for and were recently selected for prestigious summer internships at the Intel Corporation’s Folsom, CA campus. Angelica Gutierrez, Christopher Merrida, and Cruz Peregrina from John F. Kennedy High along with Sarah Guthrie and Randy Pang of El Cerrito High will be working in a wide variety of IT positions during their summer internships.
Enduring a grueling interview schedule with each student going through between five and eight interviews over a four hour period – “interview speed dating” as one Intel manager jokingly referred to the process. With over seventy students vying for only forty internships, the students knew they needed to make a strong impression during the interviews.
Cruz Peregrina, who completed the TechFutures’ Advanced Database course this month, made a believer out of one Intel manager who was skeptical he could write SQL database code until the senior from Kennedy High whipped out a piece of paper and fired off a complete script. Cruz will be a “Script Writer” where he will work with multiple SQL databases and HTML/ASP scripts and merge data to common HTML Templates. Chris Merrida, also a graduate of the Advanced Database class, nailed a series of rapid-fire questions thrown at him during one of the interviews on computer networking. Chris will be a “Training Document Coordinator,” applying web and database design skills to inventory and manage training documentation related to Intel’s Flash Products Group.
At one of the other tables, Angelica Guttierez, another Advanced Database student, was being interviewed for almost an hour even though the “time limit” for interviews were only fifteen minutes (yes, she was hired for that position as a “Project Aide” for the Database Technologies Team and will be responsible for troubleshooting support calls, lab maintenance, and work in drafting marketing presentations).
In the meantime, Sarah Guthrie was deftly fielding questions regarding subnetting – one of the topics recently covered in her Advanced Networking course. Sarah will be an “Internet Network Technician” and will work with the team of internet security engineers responsible for engineering and operation of Intel’s Internet gateways.
Randy Pang, another Advanced Networking student, will be interning as a “Design Automation Engineer” and will be responsible for creating high-quality training materials to be used in classroom settings as well as web-based training materials, creating/updating PERL scripts and maintaining/updating Intel’s Unix disk space tracking database and web-based reports.
This year marks the fourth successive year that TechFutures students have been invited to participate in the Intel High School Internship program. Intel launched its high school intern program in 2002 as a result of the extraordinary performance by Intel’s first high school interns, TechFutures grads Kit San Chung, Hendrick Yu, and Frank Zhu, TechFutures Class of 2002.
TechFutures is a two-year advanced technology training and jobs program whose mission is to train at-risk high school youth in cutting-edge internet applications to make them employable in high paying jobs in industry. Operating at three high schools within the WCCUSD at El Cerrito, Kennedy, and Richmond High School, the TechFutures training focuses on high end marketable IT skills in great demand nationwide. TechFutures an innovative “school within a school” and through new, relevant curricula and programs is a model for 21st century vocational training.
For further information, please contact:
TechFutures
Ellen Whittier, Executive Director
tel: 510-528-7088
email: ellen@techfutures.org