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Springfield, OH - October 31, 2011 - Last summer, Todd Shroyer, an Urbana resident and student at Clark State Community College travelled to Washington State to intern at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL) in Richland.
The internship was made possible through the Cybersecurity program at Clark State in partnership with Avetec, funded by a three-year Applied Technologies Education grant from the National Science Foundation from 2009 to 2012. The ten-week internship offered students from Clark State a chance to gain professional and technical skills in the workplace through a faculty embedded internship at PNNL.
Dan Heighton, a Professor at Clark State and one of the embedded faculty members, commented: "Internships are an important aspect of a student's personal and professional development. Engaging students like Todd in this type of high-tech, research-based experience allows for the development of knowledge and skills that would not happen in a regular classroom environment. Past Clark State students who have been involved in these internships return to Ohio with new perspectives on the value of education and enhanced career opportunities."
Shroyer, who will graduate in June with a degree in Cybersecurity and Network Administration from Clark State, said, “My internship really opened my eyes up there to the way things are moving.”
Shroyer says the ten-week program that focused on high performance clustered computing at PNNL helped him get his foot in the door to the type of work he will encounter in his career field and introduced him to a handful of new technologies.
“I grew both professionally and personally,” adds Shroyer who explains that he not only gained technical business skills from the experience, but took away some valuable lessons from team building and time spent with his professors and fellow interns. “We fed off each other’s knowledge and learned a lot from each other.”
Upon return from Washington, Shroyer interned briefly at Avetec, working on a variety of information technology projects and challenges.
Cathy Balas, Executive Director of Education and Workforce Development at Avetec comments what a wonderful success story Todd represents for the Cybersecurity program at Clark State.
“Todd Shroyer has been an excellent help here since the start of the quarter. He has handled many day to day [information technology] issues, fixing nagging problems that no one else has had time to do,” said Balas. “He has also dug into two big projects which were out of his usual comfort zone, looking at some specialized software and helping with a website set up.”
Shroyer’s internship experiences have proven to be invaluable. Last week, Shroyer accepted a job offer from the Honda Research Center where he will be continuing his work in information technology and cybersecurity.
Companies interested in intern development can contact Avetec’s Education Department for information or email Cathy Balas at cbalas@avetec.org.
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