The Huntsville area is known as the “Silicon Valley” of Alabama. Huntsville holds thousands of jobs just for engineers. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Huntsville has about 198,000 employed people and about 127,000 unemployed people. Why is it that those 198,000 employed people got the upper hand over the 127,000 unemployed people?

There are multiple answers to that question but one of them is job experience. Most places that you go to will ask for job experience and a lot of people don’t have that because they are fresh out of high school or even college. So then how do you get work experience if they won’t even hire you?

Many people seem to get stuck in this situation and get frustrated. Often times, people end up getting jobs that have nothing to do with their college degree. Through the internship program, seniors at Bob Jones get that upper hand that everyone wants.

Students get the job experience that they need for future jobs at companies such as SAIC, Mentor Graphics, and even NASA. The best part of the internship program is, as Mrs. Gaines explains, “Students get resumes right out of high school that most students don’t even have out of college.”

During the internship, students get a chance to work with experienced engineers at various engineering firms. They get an opportunity to work in the field in which they want to make a career.

“All of the projects we will do are going to be applied to real life applications,” explains senior Lucas Switzer, who will be interning at Mentor Graphics.

The internships are not for everyone though. Each job requires students to have finished the first two classes of the engineering academy, a minimal GPA of 3.25, and an onsite interview. Moreover, the students have to be hard working and self-motivated.

Through the engineering internships, Bob Jones students graduate high school better prepared to step out into the real engineering world.