How does a student know if their summer internship was really a success? If you’re junior Danil Denha, it’s when the company you worked with literally doesn’t want to let you go.
Denha, of Elmhurst, interned with Milwaukee-based Aeroplicity over the summer as part of the Jans Summer STM Internship program, but when his 10-week remote stint was complete, he was offered an unexpected yearlong paid internship.
“I feel very grateful to get such an opportunity,” said Denha, a computer science major. “It has been very impactful for my future and my choice of industry to work in. I never thought I would enjoy the aerospace and defense industry so much.”
The Jans Summer STM Internship Program is open to Elmhurst students pursuing degrees in science, mathematics or technology. Jans interns work at an organization that provides support related to the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and military contractors that contribute to the overall national security ecosystem. Participating students apply the skills they’ve learned in the classroom in a work setting, gaining valuable STM career development and professional skills.
For Denha, that meant working on data-based encryption and blockchain-based file sharing programs, which helped Aeroplicity provide data management platform solutions to the defense and aerospace industry. Because his work involved protected defense initiatives, Denha was unable to talk in detail about his duties, but he said the experience was “amazing.”
“My projects were very open in terms of my personal approach,” he said. “I was given my assignments, then me and the Aeroplicity team would come up with high-level solutions together. After that, I would implement the solution and code, and when everything was ready, we would do the code review and discuss potential improvements.”
In the coming year, Denha will continue to work remotely while fulfilling his classroom commitments. He said his upcoming projects include enhancing blockchain functionality and developing new services for Aeroplicity.
Students like Denha who qualify for the Jans program need to “make a splash,” said Patrick Yanahan ’94, MBA ’10, director of the Jans Family Internship Program and executive in residence for the E-celerator (innovation/entrepreneurship) program.
“It is a very distinctive, very selective internship opportunity,” Yanahan said. “Only a handful of students get a slot at these exclusive entities for the summer.”
This past summer, four students were selected for Jans internships. Yanahan hopes to see that number grow in the coming years: “Our plan is to develop and add an enhanced student pool of really talented candidates, and to grow the expanded partnerships of these unique security and defense organizations that can offer these internships.”