Internships & student Roles

High School, College, and University Students Driving Community Innovation

At Bridges Strong, high school, college, and university students play a vital role in our mission. Through hands-on internships and roles, college and university students support the organization and high school collaborations via short- or year-long opportunities. High school students (including seniors and rising seniors) participate directly as collaborators in programs such as our Summer and Winter internships. Together, students identify community challenges solvable through engineering solutions and develop educational programs for adults that spark innovation, invention, and collaboration across local underserved communities and beyond.

Why Participate?

Our programs create a true pipeline where high school students act as collaborators — researching challenges, proposing engineering solutions, and contributing to real educational content for adults. College and university students provide mentorship, technical expertise (including AI), and co-creation support. Everyone gains practical skills while making a tangible difference.

  • Act as collaborators in identifying local community challenges and engineering-based solutions.

  • Contribute to developing practical online educational programs for adult learners that promote innovation, invention, and community-led progress.

  • Build engineering knowledge, project management, teamwork, and documentation skills.

  • Explore AI tools ethically and effectively to accelerate research, analysis, and development workflows.

  • Gain real-world experience, portfolios, recommendation letters, and connections that support future academic and career goals.

  • Flexible formats with opportunities for in-person collaboration in Hampton Roads schools and communities.

Current Opportunities

  • Featured / College & University Roles.

Past & Featured Internship Highlights

  • High school collaborators developed Water Purification Module 3. Participiants gained hands-on experience in engineering education and community problem-solving.

    • During the internship, students researched and produced the English and Spanish documentation for this module,

    • Designed templates to be simple and understandable, while highlighting the critical information for the programs.

    • Produced the English version for the reverse osmosis video.

  • College and high school interns are working in Agile/Scrum cycles to advance bilingual educational modules, contributing to adult learning programs that spark local innovation.

These programs demonstrate how high school, college, and university students collaborate to identify engineering solutions for community challenges and build educational resources for adult learners.

Winter 2025 Internship

Angela Wang

Currently in her final year of high school in Bethesda, Maryland, Angela is excited to join the Bridges-Strong team this winter! Passionate about science and research, she plans to major in neuroscience or biology and hopes to pursue a future in neurology. Angela looks forward to applying her interests in science to help design thoughtful educational programs for underserved students. She also aims to strengthen her engineering foundation through creative and collaborative problem-solving.

Through her weekly volunteering and shadowing work at Sibley Memorial. Hospital, Angela has experience working with diverse populations and helping community members in need. These roles have also helped her build important communication skills and enabled her to work with individuals from many backgrounds.

In her free time, Angela enjoys reading, baking, and playing the flute, especially for performances at Sibley Hospital. She also currently works part-time at a bubble tea shop.

José Ortiz-Fuentes

Is a senior at Tabb High School interested in pursuing a career in mechanical engineering. From a young age Jose has always been fascinated by mechanics. In school, Jose builds his foundation necessary to master mechanics by taking rigorous courses in mathematics and physics. Jose is passionate about designing efficient solutions, especially in sustainable technology and engineering innovation.

Outside of school, Jose serves as the Senior Patrol Leader at Troop 54 in Boy Scouts. Through the BSA program, Jose has learned valuable leadership skills and has had the opportunity to work with people from diverse backgrounds. He is currently working toward earning the rank of Eagle Scout.

On weekends Jose can be found volunteering at his church, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, contributing to both the service ministry and youth program.