SPC has helped me immensely by providing me an internship with the city of St. Petersburg.

The internship with the city’s IT department has many different teams. The department is made up of server, network, application support, GIS, Oracle programming, web development and database administration. I was fortunate to intern with some talented techs in the application support specialists group. We deal with taking trouble tickets for around 500 employees citywide. Some of the sites that we support are the Municipal Services Center, City Hall, Fleet, Annex and a few others.

In a typical work day,  I visit different employers with computer problems, manage some servers, fix computers and write programs. After shadowing one of the technicians for about nine months, he was promoted to another position. Shortly after, I was given an interview and then offered a full-time position.

My B.A.S track deals with security, so I was able to relate a lot of what I learned in the security class with the real world. Also, the project management classes helped a great deal when I began starting my own projects. The internship provided me with the experience I needed to get hired. I recommend that all technology students get real world experience. Internships are one of the best ways to obtain the experience that employers are looking for.

Jason spoke about his internship during Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s press conference at SPC on Nov. 26, 2012. Watch his speech about it and the job opportunities it opened for him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL2jXppUD20&feature=youtu.be&t=11m14s