Schools
SRVHS Student Sees Merit of Summer Internship
Trent Ichiuji, a senior at San Ramon Valley High, shares his experience as an intern at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
In the past few years, more and more high school students have decided to spend their summers interning.
Although the work of interns may not always be paid or exciting, internships can provide a stepping-stone to job opportunities and give students the chance to work hands-on with professionals and learn about a career path they are interested in.
This summer, Trent Ichiuji, a senior at San Ramon Valley High School, was lucky to land an internship at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
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"The reason I wanted to be involved with the program is that it would give me a better perspective on what the scientific community is discovering," said Ichiuji. "Each of us had our own mentor and principle investigator who guided our work."
The seven-week summer internship program, Berkeley Lab Internship for Pre-collegiate Scholars, gave 25 students from the Bay Area and Puerto Rico the chance to research different topics and, at the end of the internship, present their research in a poster session.
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The projects included the "Application of Industrial Engineering Methods for High Tech Facilities Space Optimization" by Salesian High School student Kimberly Tan and the "Classification of Eye Tracking Scanpaths" by Preparatory Academy student Adam Goldberg.
Ichiuji worked alongside his mentors to create a protein complex analysis project called SNAP-tag labeling of E.coli. In his project, he worked with new ways of labeling E.coli proteins to see how the bacteria breaks down heay-metal waste, and could use the bacteria for clean-up efforts.
He worked five days a week in Berkeley, and on Wednesdays all 25 interns would discuss their research. The interns were also able to attend "Carbon Smack-down" lectures, for the whole lab. These lectures were presented by scientists working to reduce carbon emissions in our daily lives.
"My favorite part is knowing that I am working alongside world class scientists and gaining their trust to work in state of the art facilities at such a young age," said Ichiuji.
For more information about how to find a high school student internship, visit the CollegeBoard website.
