ITA Summer Internship With IceCube
Sponsored by the UW-Madison Division of Information Technology (DoIT), ITA is an innovative, 4-year pre-college technology access and training program for talented students of color and economically disadvantaged students attending Madison Public Schools. Our mission is to prepare students for technical, academic, and personal excellence in today's Information Age.
- Lakoye
- Lakoye suiting up
Each year, ITA competitively recruits 30 students in their final semester of 8th grade to participate in the program. Selected students receive four years of intensive training in preparation for high tech, IT related careers; in addition to intensive academic support in preparation for competitive University admissions and study. The Academy's dual focus on academic excellence and technological literacy prepares promising students for learning and leadership in the 21st century digital age, and continues the University of Wisconsin's long tradition of excellence and service.
Through hands-on training, mentoring, leadership development, community service, and internship opportunities, ITA students develop the knowledge and skills to increase their own, as well as their community's access to technology; while gaining valuable skills and experiences as future leaders and professionals.
Internship at IceCube
- Thor
- Thor trying on the coat
ITA's class of 2011 originally started with 30 students but has been reduced to 25. Two of these students, Thor and Lakoye, received an internship at IceCube and did various projects to help out the IceCube staff.
Thor helped with the website worked with his supervisor on a number of projects including: editing the IceCube website, restoring physics graphs that were hard to read, and creating tables for the graphs and other information. Thor also has learned to use Linux, html and CSS, working directly with the code as opposed to using Dreamweaver. Other programs used by Thor included Adobe Illustrator, to convert a picture into a vector image, and Adobe Photoshop and resize, adjust, and crop pictures.
Lakoye did many different tasks to help out her supervisor, she worked with a program called Tracker that allowed her to communicate with people that needed help with their computers via e-mail. When she recieved tickets via Tracker, she told people how to fix their computers and also offered personal guidance through the problems. Lakoye also took apart and built computers that were used throughout the IceCube floor. Both Lakoye and Thor have been learning basic Linux commands.
