In internship time they’d be discussing the course of their internships, working on their resumes, work on assignments for internship, update their digital portfolios. It is usually unstructured time, and Azer tells me “that is OK because they trust us– it is time where you need to get done what you need to get done. The teachers stands back, not knowing the inner workings of your internship, and so they allow you to act accordingly. ” Laptops are available, and many have pulled them out for working more on the credit card/investment project referred to earlier. Azer’s internship is at Qualcomm; in October students did a two week immersion of 40hour weeks at their internship site, and now he is doing two afternoons a week (6 hours) . Other students have internships at the zoo and a prosthetics company. Azer’s project at Qualcomm is to test out a new website in development.Internships are a key element of a High Tech High education, and exemplify one of HTH’s three Design Principles, namely the second one, Adult World Connection. Regular readers know this is a constant of mine for good schooling– how effectively is the learning connected to the real world, and how can we treat high school students not as “kids” but as junior professionals. Here it is viewed in both directions– students do internships and have “power lunches” with professionals, but also:
The HTH facilities themselves have a distinctive high-tech “workplace” feel, with windowed seminar rooms, small-group learning and project areas, laboratories equipped with the latest technology, ubiquitous wireless laptop access, and common areas where artwork and prototypes are displayed.
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