In the competitive world of college admissions and job applications, St. Francis High School supports students with its internship program – Leveraging Internships for Troubies (LIFT) – a program that empowers young women to gain experience in the male-dominated world of STEM.
In 2015, St. Francis’ current president Fadia Desmond started LIFT with a goal of creating a program that would help incoming seniors prepare for college applications by giving them real-life experience working in different fields. Desmond said support from local businesses and the parents of students have really helped the program to grow.
“We noticed that there was a lot of interest from community members, not even current or former parents, to support Troubies in the summertime with these real-life work opportunities,” Desmond said. “The high school that I attended, they had a really vibrant summer internship program, so I modeled what we did after what they did.”
Every spring, the LIFT team sends a Google Sheet to the sophomores and juniors at St. Francis that breaks down the available internship positions. If students are interested, they fill out a digital form and St. Francis connects the students to the businesses. After that, the application process varies by company – some conduct in-person interviews with students while others require resumes or writing samples. Each internship typically lasts 4-6 weeks between May and July.
The LIFT program is also another example of how St. Francis encourages its students to pursue careers in science and engineering. Hensel Phelps Construction and the California Department of Transportation are two organizations that regularly host St. Francis interns over the summer.
According to International Coalition of Girls Schools, girls attending an all-girls school are six times more likely to consider majoring in a STEM subject and three times more likely to consider engineering careers compared to girls who attend co-educational high schools.
Tatum Walbeck and Stella Davenport are seniors at St. Francis who interned at the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) through the LIFT program. This summer, the two of them helped to plan and oversee the rehabilitation of the American River Bridge, which was built in the 1950s.
Although St. Francis offers internships at a variety of local businesses, Walbeck said she was immediately interested in the Caltrans opportunity, especially once she learned that the interns would be working with a female engineer.
Both girls said that although they have always been interested in math and science, this internship gave them the confidence to turn those interests into potential careers.
“I didn’t have much experience in engineering before, so this experience was definitely eye-opening, and it helped me realize that I definitely want to major in civil engineering and I’d want to work more on the design side than the mechanical side,” Walbeck said.
Walbeck plans on majoring in civil engineering, while Davenport will pursue a major in history and a minor in physics. Even though she won’t be majoring in a STEM subject, Davenport agrees that the internship program taught her skills that can be applied to many different careers.
“I felt like (the internship program) gave me this new language to describe things – I was able to visualize diagrams and how they would apply to everyday life in various situations,” Davenport said.
John Ruzic, and Mayra Velasquez, who mentored the girls during their internship program, said the skills students learn carry over to lots of possible jobs.
“The skills that you use in construction are not limited to just civil engineering careers,” Ruzic said. “They are applicable to almost any job type. Computer skills, math skills, calculation skills, observational skills, these are critical for every type of job. So at that level (of the internship), you’re learning stuff that helps everyone and everywhere.”
Caltrans not only provides valuable hands-on experience for its St. Francis interns, but it also is working to champion diversity in the engineering field. This commitment is evident in its partnership with St. Francis through the Adopt-a-School program, through which Caltrans hopes to inspire the next generation of female engineers.
Ultimately, the partnership between the St. Francis LIFT program and Caltrans exemplifies how organizations can work together to empower the next generation. By providing real-world experiences for young women, they are not only shaping the future of these students but also the future of the engineering profession itself.
“It’s going to open doors,” Ruzic said. “It allows them to see that there are women in engineering. There are women in equipment and construction. You go out to these divisions thinking about how they are male-dominant, but then you see female engineers, like Mayra, showing the girls that they can do it too. So it just opens that door. It makes you feel welcome. And I just really hope that that’s what the students felt when they went to Caltrans.”
