Name:  Wei Gao

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: University of Maryland, Baltimore - School of Medicine

Major(s)/Minor(s):  Biological Sciences

Expected Graduation Year: 2014

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service- learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

Currently, my project seeks to determine the effect of Msi-1 on hPC1 expression in HEK cells. PC1 is an enzyme that has been shown to have proinsulin and proglucagon cleavage activity. Therefore, Msi-1 may play a key role in future research on regulating glucose levels for diabetic patients.

My work involves transfecting HEK cells with Msi-1 and comparing the levels of secreted protein and retained mRNA levels using enzymatic assays and western blots.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I love working and interacting with people who are so passionate not only about conducting their own research, but about helping me learn more about research as well. Everyone is always so eager and willing to give up their time to explain a foreign molecular concept to me or to help guide me through a new experimental protocol. Their extensive knowledge and unwavering patience day in and day out has helped me become a better biologist and a better scientist.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

Do it! Contact the principal investigators directly and show them that you’re interested in their research by reading a few of their papers. During the interview, bring up any questions that you have about the methods they used or the results they found.

How do you see your experience as meaningful? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

Being relatively new to the research field, I find that every day in the lab is filled with learning experiences. Without a doubt, this experience has been meaningful to me because I have learned so much about science and scientific methods. However, more than that, I hope this research experience can be meaningful to others as well. Perhaps my results will one day be useful for designing a better treatment for diabetes.

Please provide a short quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process / the Shriver Center:

I love the idea that I am exploring uncharted territory with my work. Since Msi-1 has not been very well-researched, often times there are questions no one (not even Google!) knows the answer to. My job is to ask those questions and find those answers.

The following full-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings! 

9262240 - Insormation Assurance Engineer I (Spring 2014 Graduates) - AAI Corporation
9262238 - Fitness Center Instructor - YMCA of Central MD
9262231 - White House Fellow - US Department of Labor
9262196 - Accounts Receivable Analyst

The following part-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9260419 - Substitute Site Coordinator - Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland
9262230 - Recruiter - Observation Baltimore
9262208 - In-Home Piano Instructor - Playtime Piano Instruction (Baltimore and Howard Counties)
9261540 - IT Support Specialist - BYK Gardner - USA

9262132 - PaRaBal, a mobile software analysis and designer is seeking Technical and Liberal Arts majors for this part-time position
MUST be a UMBC Residential Student
International and U.S. Citizens are welcome to apply!!

University of Maryland - Baltimore County has received an exclusive invitation for its students to participate in a study about the career goals, expectations and ideal employers of top college students. Your response, while anonymous, will assist over 1,200 employers who are actively recruiting or who are interested in recruiting students for internships and full time employment on our campus.

Participation in the study is by invitation only and fewer than 10% of universities nationwide are asked to participate in the study.

Top companies, including many that recruit University of Maryland - Baltimore County students, base their recruiting strategies on Universum’s research so it will truly benefit you and your peers on campus to share your opinions on recruiting and employers. Companies will only see the collective results, and your participation/identity will be kept confidential. 

In appreciation for your time you will receive two free WetFeet Insider Guides of your choice (over 50 titles to choose from) and a profile that compares your answers to other students nationwide.

Participate now at: 
https://start.wetfeet.com/survey/usss/umbc?reid=312

Name:  Kevin Johnson

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Domino Sugar Refinery

Major(s)/Minor(s):  Mechanical Engineering

Expected Graduation Year: 2015

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service- learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

At Domino Sugar I am an intern in the Packaging Department. This is the department responsible for the actually packaging of the sugar after it has been refined. The refinery receives raw sugar from all over the world and then works to create many varieties of pure sugar (well 99.95% pure) that is then sold to consumers. The packaging department consists of over 20 lines that package sugar, with weights that range from the 2.8 gram packets people use for coffee and tea to 2,000 lb supersacks that are sold to large food companies. This summer I am working on many different projects. Some of the larger projects include an audit of the checkweighers on each line (checkweighers are machines that constantly check the weights of the bags or boxes of sugar as they run across the conveyors of the line) and implementing a system that sends this data to a screen that shows graphs and statistics in real time. Another project involves activating a melter tank that is out of operation and connecting it to a larger melter tank 2 floors down. I am also working on designing and implementing a system to reject bad bags of sugar before they reach the unitizers and palletizers provided that they happen to make it past the first set of quality checks. Finally, I am planning and carrying out a project to upgrade a motor in our soft sugar section that has the potential to save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. These are just some of the interesting projects I get to work on every day I come into work. In addition to all this work I get to learn about the world of manufacturing from my extremely knowledgeable coworkers and supervisors.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I have enjoyed the opportunity to get a glimpse into the world of manufacturing and how engineering is related to this field. I have interned at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center before, and this internship is very different in many ways so it has been a great way to broaden my engineering experience. Being able to work with experienced engineers and learn directly from them has been such a valuable experience. It really demonstrates how what you learn in class relates to real world problems and solutions. Everyone who works here has been extremely kind and helpful, which has made the learning experience even more valuable.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity?

Like I said before, I have interned at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center before and this internship at Domino Sugar has been very different. The manufacturing process of a privately owned company is much different than working at a government run agency. The knowledge I have gained here has been from a different view of engineering, which has been great for expanding my view of engineering as a whole. I would not say I have learned a lot of things here I could not have gained from another opportunity. I would say it is helpful to gain multiple views of what an engineering degree can lead to in the workforce. And I have definitely gained an appreciation of that from this internship in comparison to my other one.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

I would say do not give up and apply to everything you qualify for. It is not easy to get an internship, especially in this turbulent job market with so many experienced students applying from all over the country. I would also suggest branching out of their comfort zone to gain an appreciation for all there is to learn and experience. It is important to experience a variety of experiences before entering the job market as a new graduate. This will allow you to really narrow down your future plans to what you definitely know you're passionate about.

How do you see your experience as meaningful? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

This internship has been great for gaining real world experience. It is a great indicator of how to relate what you learn in class to real world problems and solutions. The projects I work on really challenge me to think outside of the box to devise creative and effective solutions. I am able to work on something new every day, and I also have the unique opportunity to work with a wide array of people. This allows me to network with many different individuals who have given me valuable information and connections for the future.

Please provide a short quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process / the Shriver Center:

I would like to wrap up by saying this internship has been a priceless experience that has really allowed me to branch out and learn more about different areas of engineering, especially manufacturing and industry. I would also like to thank the Shriver Center for helping me obtain this opportunity and my supervisor at Domino Sugar, Rush Yelverton (head of Packaging Department), for hiring me and teaching me more than I thought I could ever know about sugar and the manufacturing process.

The following full-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings! 

9262092 - Administrative Assistant - Freestone Environmental
9258745 - Client Services Representative - RainKing Solutions
9262082 - Cyber Analyst Specialist - NJVC, LLC
9262134 - Developer and Technical Positions - CGI Federal
9262128 - Jr. Helpdesk Specialist - Chesapeake Human Resources Services, LLC
9262108 - Hardware Engineer I - SOTECH

The following part-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9262132 - PaRaBal, a mobile software analysis and designer is seeking Technical and Liberal Arts majors for this part-time position
MUST be a UMBC Residential Student
International and U.S. Citizens are welcome to apply!!

9262102 - Catering Director - Chick-Fil-A (Landsdowne/Halethorpe)
9262107 - Facilitator - Weekend Residential Rehabilitation - Way Station
9262064 - Receptionist - Bill's Music House (Catonsville)
9262052 - Concierge - Water's Edge Events Center