In a graduation of sorts from MTC’s high school internship program, 35 students recently gathered at the Bay Area Metro Center to share their experiences interning at transportation agencies across the Bay Area. Using tools like PowerPoint, Prezi and Google Slides, the students each delivered a three-to-four-minute presentation on their experiences, discussing the value of their agencies to their communities, their own duties for the summer, and the new skills they plan to apply to their future education and career paths. The students also expressed appreciation to their mentors in attendance; these guides represented a variety of professional voices in transportation engineering, planning, operations, marketing and more from throughout the region.
MTC created the paid internship program in 2000 in order to expose students — and particularly underrepresented minority populations — to transportation professions, including the funding, construction and planning sides of the field. As in years past, this year’s crop of students underwent a competitive application and interview process, and each completed 250 hours of work, complete with time sheets, performance reviews and the other hallmarks of professional positions.
At the recent end-of-summer event, four judges from MTC and the greater community provided feedback to the students on their speaking, writing and presentation skills. Surveys with the judges’ ratings and additional comments were mailed to the students following the event. After a cheerful lunch in which the students got to connect one last time with their fellow interns, the students all left with new MTC t-shirts, new contacts for their future careers and surely a newfound sense of pride for all their hard work.
See a photo gallery of the event below.
