Meredith Van Zuiden | Assistant Arts + Life Editor

Many Buena Vista University (BVU) students are looking for summer time employment this time of year. With a little over a month left of school, students are accepting jobs and internships that include working in retail, waiting tables, maybe helping at a camp for kids, or, for one BVU student, creating top-secret programs with the U.S. Department of Defense in Maryland.

Sophomore Sarah Mackey is a Computer Science and Mathematics double major at BVU, and has recently accepted a summer internship with the Department of Defense.

Mackey is not able to disclose a lot of information about her upcoming internship details, mostly because that’s information she does not even have access too yet.

“The cool part is that I’m not allowed to talk a whole lot about it,” said Mackey. “Also, I don’t know exactly what it is because they couldn’t tell me.”

Mackey secured the internship after a months-long process.

“I heard about the internship last year, and I applied back in October. It’s a super long process,” she said. “

Mackey was then selected for an interview. She flew to Maryland over J-term for that meeting with the Department of Defense. She says the interview process was “terrifying but really awesome.”

The BVU sophomore speculates that she will be working on a computer program during her time in Maryland.

“Basically the gist of it is that it will be a lot of work between computer science and math stuff. So I’ll be making some kind of program, and I get to pick what I work on,” Mackey said.

In order to receive funding for the internship this summer, Mackey applied for support from the Stine Endowment. This endowment will help Mackey pay for housing and food while living in Maryland.

Mackey is unsure whether or not she will apply credit from the internship towards her major at BVU.

“I don’t need any [internship credit] for my major, and I know there are some requirements for me to meet if I were to do so,” she said.

Due to the nature of Mackey’s internship she wouldn’t be able to disclose information, so meeting internship requirements through BVU may be a challenge.

“Which is awesome, but kind of a pain, so I’ll have to explore and see what career services says about that,” Mackey said.

Photo courtesy of Sarah Mackey