Every summer, Education Analytics (EA) is fortunate enough to welcome a new cohort of interns to provide additional support and learn alongside our teams. Summer offers an ideal time for students to participate in paid internships with our teams. This period is particularly busy for us, as we are deeply engaged in analyzing data from the previous school year to deliver timely insights to districts before the new academic year begins. EA’s internship program, launched in 2014 by our Analyst team, was designed to cultivate a pipeline of future programmers. The team sought out students who might not have previous programming experience yet demonstrated an interest in developing their skills. Since 2014, the intern program has steadily expanded, allowing us to bring on additional interns to support project work across various teams at EA, including Brand & Communications, Business Development, Finance & Accounting, IT, Partner Strategy, Program Operations, and Software and Data Engineering.
Our organization benefits significantly from the diverse range of perspectives and insights that interns bring to EA, and we wanted to highlight the 2024 internship cohort and their accomplishments. We invited the 2024 cohort to share their thoughts about their internship experience at EA, what they’ve learned throughout their internship, and what advice they would give to future EA interns.
Meet the 2024 Summer Interns
Quinn Beirne, IT Team
Quinn Beirne attends the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and was an intern on the IT team. Quinn was most interested in learning anything and everything about IT systems and best practices with a particular focus on security.
Bhenzel Cadet, Data Engineering Team
Bhenzel Cadet attends Bucknell University, and he returned to EA for a second summer, this year as an intern on the Data Engineering team. Bhenzel was most excited to learn more about creating data pipelines, using tools to streamline data processes, and diving into concepts of data warehousing.
Suyash Chaudhary, Cloud Engineering Team
Suyash Chaudhary attended the Marathwada Institute of Technology and Indiana University Bloomington and was an intern on the Cloud Engineering team. Suyash wanted to learn how all the resources we utilize come together to collectively serve a school district or individual school, and specifically, what role each Amazon Web Services (AWS) resource plays in the broader context.
Genevieve Goetz, Analyst Team
Genevieve Goetz attends the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was an intern on the Analyst team. Genevieve wanted to learn more about both EA as an organization and data analysis through R.
Maria Celeste Sanchez Linares, Analyst Team
Maria Celeste Sanchez Linares attends Macalester College and was an intern on the Analyst team. Maria was excited to learn how data can be leveraged to build infrastructures that eliminate the obstacles and disparities preventing students from achieving their full potential.
Na Nguyen, Data Engineering Team
Na Nguyen attends Macalester College and was an intern on the Data Engineering team. Na wanted to know more about analytics engineering.
Chloe Snow, Analyst Team
Chloe Snow attends Kansas State University and was an intern on the Analyst team. Chloe was interested in honing her technical skills while using coding programming languages like R.
Swathi Siva, Partner Strategy Team
Swathi Siva attends Southern New Hampshire University and was an intern on the Partner Strategy team. Swathi was looking forward to learning more about the components of project management, specifically risk management.
Sage Wang, Partner Strategy Team
Sage Wang attends the University of Washington and was an intern on the Partner Strategy team. Sage was excited to learn more about how product design can be used to help high school students prepare for the next step in their educational trajectory.
Evan Wooldridge, Brand & Communications Team
Evan Wooldridge attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was an intern on the Brand & Communications team. Evan was interested in learning more about the various methods of executing EA’s mission to support diverse student populations through branding and communications efforts.
2024 Summer Internship Projects
In addition to completing other assignments and projects assigned to them by their mentors, EA interns spend a significant part of their internship creating a project of their own choosing to work on throughout the summer. The intern-led projects provide a unique opportunity to explore questions or challenges they are interested in seeking solutions for. While developing, designing, and refining their projects, each intern is given guidance, support, and feedback from their mentors to ensure they are on-track and prepared to present the projects to EA staff at the end of the summer.
To demonstrate the diverse range of project topics from this year’s cohort, we wanted to highlight the projects created and presented by our interns this summer.
Quinn Beirne
“I worked on displaying EA's server metrics in an open-source data visualization program called Grafana. It lets me display at-a-glance visualizations of things like server temperature, CPU/memory utilization, connected users, free storage space etc. I've found the way that the data gets from EAs servers to Grafana to be interesting.”
Bhenzel Cadet
“I developed a tool to streamline and automate memory profiling for Python projects. This project interested me because it touched on my passion for optimizing software performance and gave me the opportunity to make profiling tasks more accessible and efficient for developers.”
Suyash Chaudhary
“I'm working on an aspect of the StartingBlocks project, and what excites me most is that my contributions will help bridge the gap between technical teams, ensuring effective bi-directional communication.”
Genevieve Goetz
“I supported the Analyst team by exploring social emotional learning (SEL) survey data to identify longitudinal patterns. This project required generating both statistical summary tables and line plots faceted by demographic information, test construct, and survey question so that analysts could more readily reference long-term trends. I also investigated how COVID-19 closures track with SEL trends along with finding within-student differences across years. This project excited me because it allowed me to build my technical skills in R and critical thinking skills necessary for research. While my project mentor gave me clear foundational guidelines, I had the creative space beyond them to explore areas of significance and build questions that interested me!”
Maria Celeste Sanchez Linares
“I undertook a project focused on analyzing teacher turnover in the school districts of Wisconsin, investigating the potential causes behind teacher mobility and how it has evolved over time. What excited me most about this project was that understanding the dynamics of teacher mobility is crucial for developing effective strategies to address it. This topic had been relatively unexplored at EA, giving me the unique opportunity to dive deeply into the data with the flexibility to explore various potential angles.”
Na Nguyen
“I created a dbt package to help surface and monitor logs of EA's in-house data integration tools. This project involved industry-level technical and soft skills as well as making meaningful contributions to the company—a goal that I set out to achieve by end of the internship.”
Chloe Snow
“My intern project helped the Business Development team start to answer the question, ‘What impact is EA having on the American public education system?’ The Business Development team made a spreadsheet that indicated which school districts nationwide use our products, and I merged public data into that spreadsheet so that we could find total counts of gender, grade-level, race/ethnicity, free and reduced lunch status, school type, school location, school modality, and charter status. This was an exciting project to be a part of because it helps every team here at EA. It is exceedingly difficult to produce insightful analytics or make strategic business decisions if we do not know our impact on the education space, and my project was a first step in knowing who we are impacting and what types of districts are opting to use our products and services.”
Swathi Siva
“I worked on risk management for my intern project, specifically identifying risks in the risk management process. I have always been interested in risk management because it is a process that can be very easily overlooked in projects, and from both personal and professional experience, I have realized its importance. Through the intern project and the overall internship, I got the opportunity to learn more about it.”
Sage Wang
“I worked on designing a college roadmap feature for the Rally Analytics Platform. This project aimed to help users understand their students' college readiness and provide better support for their college preparation. What excited me about this project is its potential to make an impact on students' educational journeys by equipping educators with the tools they need to guide students towards college.”
Evan Wooldridge
“I developed a comprehensive marketing package to enhance the visibility and appeal of the EA Intern Program, aimed at attracting a diverse pool of prospective applicants. My goal was to craft a compelling narrative that effectively conveyed the essence of EA's mission and the unique benefits of its internship program. By highlighting the company's dynamic work culture, impactful projects, and career development opportunities, I intended to create an engaging story that resonates with competitive candidates. This project was driven by my passion for showcasing EA's distinctive value proposition and ensuring that the right talent is drawn to the program. The idea of portraying the story and mission of EA in a way that is appealing to the right applicants fueled me to pursue this project!”
Q&A with the Intern Cohort
We wanted to hear from this year’s internship cohort about their experiences at EA this summer, what interested them in working at EA, what they learned during their summer internship, and what advice they would give to future EA interns. Here’s what they had to say:
What interested you in working at EA?
- Genevieve: “As an economics major, I had difficulty finding internships that offered opportunities to both practice coding/analysis AND make a positive impact. The research analyst internship at EA holds a rare combination of those priorities that made the role especially enticing to me.”
- Sage: “I am passionate about using the power of design to enhance education. Before joining EA, I worked on several education-focused projects at schools; however, I was particularly intrigued by the idea of leveraging data to help people make informed decisions. The opportunity to explore how data can be used in education was a major draw for me to work at EA.”
- Suyash: “The work EA does with the Ed-Fi suite and their API aligns closely with my previous experience, where I worked with clients in school districts in Indiana and New Mexico. Having heard great things about EA's work, mission, and culture, it felt like a natural choice to transfer with my team and continue improving educational outcomes.”
What have you learned during your time at EA that you'll be able to apply to your studies and/or future employment opportunities?
- Bhenzel: “I've learned how to use tools such as Airflow, which will help my ability to automate and manage workflows effectively. I've also strengthened my problem-solving and communications skills.”
- Na: “You really should like your job because it is best feeling in the world to attend a workplace where you enjoy the work that you do with the people who company you love.”
- Quinn: “There are lots of different common systems used in both systems administration and IT. Efficient workflow for IT has also been something I've found very interesting.”
- Swathi: “I have learned a lot about project management, how a project cycle happens, how collaboration with team members and stakeholders happens, and more. I feel everything I have learned from my time here will help with future employment opportunities as it has given me experience in the project management field.”
What advice would you give to future EA interns?
- Chloe: “Reach out! Throughout this internship, I have continuously reached out to staff on other teams to learn about their role, their educational background, and their path to EA. Not only has this allowed me to learn more about EA's mission, but it also allowed me to connect with a diverse group of people that have given me invaluable advice about my future endeavors, and have encouraged me to explore other career paths that I am also interested in.”
- Evan: “Take advantage of getting to know the awesome employees at EA! There are so many cool people who have had great careers and would love to impart their wisdom on interns.”
- Maria: “Be curious and don't shy away from asking questions or seeking clarification; this is a learning opportunity, and your colleagues are valuable resources. Take full advantage of the collaborative and supportive culture at EA and seek out feedback. Make the most of the networking opportunities available, and connect with your peers and mentors because building these relationships can be invaluable.”
This year's cohort of interns were incredibly impressive and actively propelled EA's mission forward. I was blown away by their comradery, collaboration, and overall work ethic that allowed them to bond as a group and maximize their time at EA. All of their final projects prompted insightful discussions and we'll be using their results for years to come!
The internship program continues to be an asset to the organization by supporting the work we do with and for our partners; while also infusing the unique perspectives that each cohort brings to EA. The intern program is one of the strategies we use to ensure we continue to foster a diverse pipeline of talent and maintain an inclusive work environment. We hope the internship program will continue to interest passionate students in pursuing a career path in education, data, and technology.
EA has been fortunate to bring on several of our interns as part-time or full-time employees after the completion of their internships—and whether with EA or another organization, the primary goal of our internship program is to help students find meaningful and impactful work.
