It’s back to school season, which means college campuses everywhere are filling with new and returning students. Fifty-four lucky students have returned to campus with the experience of a lifetime. They spent 8-10 weeks gaining confidence and making connections through the Minority STEM Pipeline Division Student Partnership Program (MSPDSPP) that will help them launch their careers.

MSPDSPP offers talented high school, undergraduate and graduate students of diverse backgrounds and geographies paid summer internships with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its national laboratories. Internships involve scientific research or a focus on policy, business, and government relations.

This year’s MSPDSPP class included 54 students from over 40 different colleges and universities from all over the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and two local high school students. Thirty-one of these students worked in Washington, D.C., at DOE HQ. Twenty-three interns spent their summer at one of DOE’s national laboratories. These interns had the opportunity to work with subject matter experts from the Energy Information Administration, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Offices of Science, Economic Impact and Diversity, Electricity, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Environmental Management, Fossil Energy, Nuclear Energy, Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and Management.

But don’t take our word for it, let the students speak for themselves!