Community Connections:
Launching a High School IT Internship Program at Labcorp

It’s never too early to start thinking about your future career. Starting as early as high school, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) internships are a great way for students to explore a field and gain career awareness through hands-on learning. Recognizing the many STEM learning opportunities available at LabCorp, the Information Technology (IT) department initiated a formal high school internship program with students from the local communities near the company’s headquarters.

Six weeks – one very unique project

“We interviewed students from a variety of schools across Alamance and Orange County, North Carolina, and hired nine students,” explained Bobbi Croy, Vice President IT Laboratory Systems at LabCorp. “In the six weeks the interns spent with us, we wanted them to experience the process of supporting a project from start to finish.”

“Our interns were given a fun and interesting project,” said Bobbi. They were assigned to design a video game that could be played by patients waiting in a LabCorp Patient Service Center.

Several groups within IT supported the interns’ efforts and a manager offered guidance as the team’s mentor. At the end of the six weeks, the interns gave a presentation and demonstration of their game to nearly 100 people, including LabCorp IT senior leadership and IT colleagues.

Getting an inside view of IT at LabCorp

In addition to working on an engaging project, the high school interns also toured one of the LabCorp clinical laboratories with state-of-the-art clinical testing automation, visited the IT data centers, and learned about the different areas where LabCorp IT plays a part in advancing healthcare by following the journey of a lab specimen from start to finish.

“The interns got to know more about the company and the areas where IT is used across the organization,” said Kelli Means, IT Administrative Assistant at LabCorp. “We set up career workshops and a senior leadership panel, as well as a panel with IT leaders from across the division so the interns could understand how wide of a career field IT really is. These panels allowed the interns to understand the range of experiences their co-workers have and allowed them to ask all of their burning questions. It was a great way for them to learn more about the opportunities and career paths available here.”

Not only did the interns gain awareness about our work, they were able to get a lot of real-world exposure and see how teams work in corporate IT for a global company, said Michael Penhollow, Executive Director Global IT Architecture.

“We helped them learn about enterprise tools, practices, security and systems that they would see in real life for any large company,” Mike said. “I believe the program allowed them to really understand the challenges we face and that experience helped them gel together as a team.”

Addressing a shortage of STEM workers

Beyond developing community connections, the LabCorp IT internship program also supports the development of the pipeline of future STEM professionals. STEM positions are at risk of severe understaffing across the U.S., as recently discussed by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, & Technology.

“Companies need to be proactive and nurture STEM talents very early to ensure a vibrant and competitive science and technology workforce,” Bobbi said. “That’s why LabCorp is investing in young people to inspire a passion for technology as we help develop their skills to serve STEM-related professions.”

Helping transform today’s interns into tomorrow’s leaders

Raymond, a former LabCorp IT high school intern, now attends community college.

“There was a lot to like about my internship with LabCorp,” he said. “In particular, the whole experience gave me a chance to work in a field that I cherish: the field of video game development. I got to work firsthand with the development of a video game, and, in the process, got to a meet a ton of great people with incredible skills of their own. Collaboration was tightly knit and it felt like a group effort from all members at all times, which is something I really appreciate. It was interesting to be on the inside of a real-world corporate environment and see the inner mechanisms of what made LabCorp run, both on technical and non-technical standpoints.”

He also found that the internship helped guide his current choices in college.

“Overall, I will say that my experience working with software development at LabCorp has given me a greater interest in the area than I had at the start of the internship. Computer hardware engineering has always been my career of choice, but recently I have been dabbling more in development. The internship has shown me that I may actually like software development more than I know, so picking it up as a second major is definitely a possibility in the future.”

LabCorp hopes this program strengthens its roots in the community as it continues to help future IT leaders like Raymond find their passion and understand where their IT skills can make a difference in improving health and improving lives.

Joining a LabCorp IT Internship Program

The next LabCorp IT internship for high school students will start in summer 2020. Stay tuned for more information.

If you’re interested in a college internship opportunity or in exploring professional careers across the IT organization, visit https://jobs.labcorp.com/