by Jennifer Hairston

Larger imageJennifer Hairston, ACCESS student, is discussing several internship opportunities that are available to students through SCEC.

Wilberforce University requires each student to complete two co-ops and/or internships to graduate. To aid students in finding an internship in their field, the Cooperative Education Office hosts a career fair every semester. As a recent graduate of Wilberforce University, Jennifer Hairston was a representative for SCEC at Wilberforce University's spring career fair. Jennifer was able to connect with current students in the computer science and engineering field and introduce them to the SCEC internship programs. She was also able to discuss student related programs to the computer science professors at the university so they'll be able to relay the message to students that were unable to attend the career fair.

Larger imageJennifer Hairston is talking to a junior status student about ACCESS and other student opportunities.

When I was a USEIT (Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology) intern in 2007, I was exposed to a field that involved engineering. At the time, I didn’t realize that there was so much that could be done in earthquake sciences technically. During the USEIT internship, I aided in creating several levels for a mitigation computer game. I mainly helped with programming the game in Flash Action Script.

Larger imageJennifer Hairston is an alumna of Wilberforce University and is a member of the USEIT class of 2007. She is currently a USC Graduate Student in computer science and a SCEC-ACCESS Intern.

By the end of the internship, I was very interested in pursuing my graduate studies in this subject. When I was informed that the ACCESS (Advancement of Cyberinfrastructure Careers through Earthquake System Science) internship combined technology and earthquake sciences, I became very interested in participating in the ACCESS program. By participating in this internship, I am able to become more knowledgeable in the field of engineering and earthquake system science. Also, my career aspirations are to become an engineer with emphasis in computational science. I know that some of the previous research topics deal with parallelization and parallel computing. Being an ACCESS intern is giving me the opportunity to work towards my goal and educate me on a subject that is of great importance to the world, especially Southern California.