The annual High School Internship Program, sponsored by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), is now accepting applications for paid summer internships with transportation agencies throughout the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2000, the internship program has been providing Bay Area students the opportunity to work for a variety of local transit, planning and public works agencies. The program was conceived by MTC’s Minority Citizens Advisory Committee to encourage young people to consider careers in transportation.
Students will be employed, either full-time or part-time, for up to 250 hours between June and August under the mentorship of a transportation professional at the public agency. Previous interns have left the program with skills in marketing, public outreach, data analysis, AutoCAD, Geographic Information Systems and other valuable skills.
“The internship program is not only about helping students build technical skills, but also about giving them a head start and experience with the job application process,” says MTC internship program coordinator Yulee Kim. “Applicants compete with other students for a position, answer typical job application questions, and many of them go through a formal interview process at the public agency.”
Thirty-nine paid internships are available throughout Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties. A list of internship opportunities and the online application are available at: http://jobs.mtc.ca.gov/InternshipOpportunities/jobinternship.html(link is external).
To apply, students can submit the completed application online, including an attached one-page document that describes, in the applicant’s own words, a transportation problem in his or her community and what the applicant thinks could be done to resolve it. A letter or letters of recommendation from a teacher, principal, counselor, religious leader or employer also must be included. Students must live and go to school in the same county that they are applying for, must have completed tenth grade and must be at least 16 years old by the start of the program in June. Students graduating in 2016 also are eligible to apply for the internships. The application must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. on Mar. 20, 2016.
