By Ghanya Thomas. Three talented UC students learned about work at the Office of the President (UCOP) this summer as they completed internships with Information Technology Services (ITS). The students were sponsored through INROADS, a nonprofit provider that recruits talented students from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds and prepares them to excel in corporate careers.
Founded in 1970, INROADS is the largest nonprofit recruitment agency in the country. Throughout its four-decade history, INROADS has placed students in over 127,000 paid internships, and guided over 27,000 alumni into full-time professional and leadership positions.
In addition to work experience, INROADS student interns receive training, mentoring, and leadership development. Since 1989, 739 University of California students have completed the INROADS process and have gone on to become leaders in business and industry. The partnership with INROADS supports UC’s commitment to developing and recruiting a diverse workforce.
Meet the ITS summer interns:
Reign C. Nelson was born and raised in San Leandro, CA. She makes a superb spaghetti with garlic bread, but she’d rather be exploring coding languages, creating greedy algorithms, or designing robotic software. A rising senior at UC Merced, Reign is a computer science and engineering major who loves Game of Thrones and binge-watching Netflix shows. A natural problem solver and calculus wiz, Reign is a member of the Society of Women Engineers and served as a Lead Youth Mentor in the National Society of Black Engineers (SEEK) program. During her internship she worked in the Cyber-Risk Coordination Center, where she did research on systemwide network information and cybersecurity threats, as well as cybersecurity awareness. Reign also supported UC’s Cybersecurity Summit, which was attended by 500 UC staff, and the Cyber Champion Forum.
Jose L. Solorio Ramirez says people always tell him he has a familiar face. But it’s not what you think – he has an identical twin! In high school the brothers would switch classes to confuse their teachers and classmates. Fortunately Jose’s brother (who attends UC Berkeley) isn’t good at computer programming so he can’t sub for Jose at work. Jose is pursuing his passion as a computer science major at UC Davis and will graduate in June 2018. He’s a member of the Davis Computer Science Club and a recipient of the Gates Millennium Scholar award. This summer Jose worked on developing test scripts for the Affordable Care Act JAVA application and revamped UC’s Payroll/Personnel System website, improving the navigation, and updating the site’s branding.
Ruperd Wilson II is a music enthusiast who plays the guitar and enjoys listening to electronic, jazz, hip hop, and alternative genres. Ruperd studies electrical engineering at UC Riverside, made the Dean’s list three times, and was awarded the Wesley O-Brien Scholarship. Ruperd enjoys playing basketball and had the opportunity to play a pick-up game with a professional baller from France’s Ligue Féminine de Basketbal! When Ruperd isn’t cramming his brain studying logic design and engineering electromagnetics, he enjoys hiking Mount Rubidoux and Graffiti Falls in Riverside. He hopes to one day use his degree to design Formula E electric sport cars. During his summer internship Ruperd wrote a programming script using Python and researched how search engines are implemented on UCOP websites.
Ghanya Thomas is IT Diversity Outreach Coordinator and Executive Assistant to the CIO, Information Technology Services, at the UC Office of the President.