DECISIVE ANALYTICS welcomes a new class of Big Data Analytics interns
Along with financial assistance, the Earl Woods Scholarship Program assists college students in securing internships in their career-related fields. Today we hear from DECISIVE ANALYTICS Corporation (DAC), which has been a dedicated internship provider to our scholars looking to focus in software engineering work. Through their hands-on internship program, DECISIVE ANALYTICS offers students the opportunity to execute projects from top to bottom, giving them a wide range of exposure to all aspects of the industry. To date, DAC boasts five full-time employee-owners who began as interns, highlighting the value and importance of internships.
This summer, DECISIVE ANALYTICS Corporation welcomed seven new interns to develop state-of-the art Big Data Analytics capabilities in text, imagery, video and audio processing. DAC’s unique internship opportunity allows students to participate as part of an integrated team through the full software development life cycle, deploying software for real-time military, intelligence and commercial applications.
“The bar is set high for our interns, and each year we have been impressed with how they meet or even exceed expectations. Like any other employee, they produce results that are client facing and have even resulted in patentable technologies,” said Dr. James Nolan, vice president of analytical technologies.
Each software engineering intern works on separate projects before presenting their findings to the company at the end of the summer. The projects include automatically identifying objects from imagery and video, developing new language processing capabilities and analyzing social media.
“I came to DECISIVE ANALYTICS with very little knowledge of Machine Learning; frankly it was something I had never really intended to look into. However, it is nearing the end of my internship, and I could not be happier I chose to explore this part of computer science. Not only did DAC show me what it is like to work at a small but very tight-knit company, they allowed me to gain an interest I never even knew I had. I learned several things here all while meeting some intelligent and great people,” said Tiger Woods Foundation Scholar and DAC intern Alexis Vivar.
Many previous DECISIVE ANALYTICS interns have returned to the company whether as second-year interns or even full-time employees. Currently, DAC boasts five full-time employee-owners who began as interns. Andrew Runge was brought on after his graduation as an employee-owner to extend the work on his summer project, which created a component in Java that identifies connections between people or groups that may not seem connected at first glance.
“During my internship, I learned the value of experimentation and walked away from the experience with the tools to prepare for the transition from school to career,” he explained.
Meghana Valluri, a student from Carnegie Mellon University, returned this summer for her second year as an analytical technologies intern.
“I really appreciated how we’re given meaningful and interesting work,” Valluri said. “It’s really no less significant or important than what any of the full-time employees do; it’s just on a smaller scale so that we can accomplish something in the short time that we’re here.”
This year’s class comes from various colleges including Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Maryland, George Mason University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While most are recruited through college job fairs, many decided to join the internship program after speaking with former interns at DAC.
“I jumped at the chance to dive into real-world Machine Learning,” said Matthew Kroen, echoing a sentiment made by most of this year’s intern class. “I also looked at reviews around the internet, and I saw nothing but glowing reviews. That’s a bit unusual, so I thought I had best come see for myself.”
“We have extremely hard-working, caring and thoughtful people here. We support each other fully and strongly believe in the success of the company,” said Dana Ho, former intern who has been at DAC for 15 years and now serves as director of contracts. For more information on DAC’s summer intern program, please contact lead recruiter Jessica Vermiere, jessica.vermeire@dac.us, 703-414-5007.
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