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News Article
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Students prep for intelligence jobs
By Robert Gray
Several engineering students at the University of Texas at El Paso begin orientation this summer and are setting up internships as part of a new program designed to help them prepare for jobs in the intelligence community.
“There is a tremendous opportunity for students. There is a place and a job for you in this area of intelligence and security,” U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes said at a press conference last week. He chairs the House Intelligence Committee.
Mark Sassenfeld, who graduated this year from UTEP with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, was accepted into the program. He would like to work for the CIA – a dream he has had since he was a kid.
“What isn’t there to like about it? They’re on the leading edge of everything,” he said.
The program, Information Operations Workforce of the 21st Century, is funded by the National Reconnaissance Office and was created in partnership with the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute.
According to Richard Schoephoerster, dean of UTEP’s College of Engineering, it’s designed to help students enter the intelligence field by providing them with on-the-job training through paid internships and an opportunity to earn security clearances.
Students selected for the program will spend the first six months studying specialized coursework and the second six months assigned to an intelligence agency to gain work experience.
The program is part of a greater push by UTEP, Schoephoerster said, to provide students with more internship opportunities to help them gain real-world experience.
Their goal, he said, is for 40 percent of UTEP students to complete an internship before graduating from the university.
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