Jan 08, 2025

CENIC Internship Program Creates Career Pathways for Students

Bryan Barnett was in the midst of completing networking-related coursework at Orange Coast College when a new opportunity piqued his interest.

It was the chance to intern with CENIC, and it didn’t take much convincing for Barnett to bite.

“I was 1,000 percent in immediately,” said Barnett, whose internship began in 2014. “This seemed like a great opportunity to get some experience.”

His instincts proved right.

“The internship was fantastic,” Barnett recalled. “There was just so much opportunity for me to learn about networking in general and what being a network engineer entails. And what I liked the most about it is that it seemed that there was no limit to how far I could take things.”

The purpose of CENIC’s internship program is twofold: giving back to the community CENIC serves by offering students a chance to gain real-world experience and serving as an avenue for CENIC to source employees. In a typical year, 12 students rotate through the program. Once the initial three-month internship is complete, the Network Operations Center (NOC) team determines whether a student has the potential to join the team more permanently. Those identified as most promising begin an initial probationary period of employment for three months.

Barnett said he learned a lot from the experience.

For instance, if he wanted to learn about how CENIC’s backbone was designed or how optical technology works, those topics were open to him. And while studying networking issues was largely theoretical at school, the internship afforded him the opportunity to be a part of real-world solutions.

“It was an incredible opportunity for someone new, especially if you’re motivated, and I was very motivated to learn all of this stuff,” Barnett said. “It was the perfect environment for me.”

Following the internship, Barnett was promoted to a full-time NOC trainee before being promoted to a network engineer. He’s now a lead network engineer for CENIC operations.

Internship Program’s Early Days

CENIC’s internship program launched in March 2012 and began working to bring in new interns on three-month rotations. The program was recently revamped to include security responsibilities, providing opportunities for further growth.

The program recruits interns from various California community colleges and universities.

Stanley Han, CENIC’s associate vice president of engagement, helped reimagine the program. He said it was initially started as a way for new interns to support engineers in completing various tasks, and eventually became successful by having a regular cadence of students on rotation and expanding the scope of their responsibilities.

CENIC later developed a trainee program so that it could promote select interns to employees by giving them a pathway to becoming full-time network engineers.

Intern-to-hires have an opportunity to work outside that scope too, Han said, noting some have landed as project managers or software developers.

“The internship program has been really successful in the sense that even though it is technically an internship for the network operations group, it gives participants a chance to branch beyond that as well,” Han said.

In May, CENIC integrated security-focused opportunities into the program, so that those interested in that component of network operations can explore it further.

Interns are expected to complete a range of tasks, including documentation audits and updates, updating customer contact information, abuse ticket processing and follow-up, and compiling weekly outage reports. Once proficient with these tasks, the interns receive expanded responsibilities, including out-of-band management testing, security vulnerability remediation tracking, security software updates, and security-infused activity stream updates.

At that point, interns are given strong technical assessments to determine whether CENIC wants to promote them to full-time positions. If so, the intern undergoes interviews and technical scenarios before becoming a trainee.
The trainee program lasts between twelve to eighteen months and almost always results in participants being promoted to full-time positions. The network administrator position was recently created to replace the trainee program, giving interns and entry-level candidates opportunities to work full-time in CENIC’s NOC.

Opportunity Beckons

The program's first intern was a promising Cypress College student named Viet Do, who was initially tasked with doing spam and abuse ticket work.

“It was an instrumental opportunity,” Do said. “At the time, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do once I finished my CCC coursework, but everything fell into place because I ultimately was offered a full-time position with CENIC.”

Beyond being the first intern, Do was also the first person to complete CENIC’s NOC trainee program and was hired on as a full-time employee within two years. Today, he works as a network engineer. Reflecting on the opportunities the internship afforded him, Do said it helped solidify his career path while giving him the opportunity to learn real-world skills.

Future interns will likely find the program valuable for similar reasons, he said.

“The really nice thing is that the internship acts as a gateway for them to determine if this is the type of thing that they want to be doing,” Do said. “A lot of people choose a major where they're not really sure what it really is, and the NOC internship has really opened people's eyes up to the reality of this career path. I tell interns, ‘Keep your mind open to what you experience here because you may really enjoy it.’”

Partnering with California's Community Colleges

Ben Izadi, a cybersecurity and computer networking professor at Cypress College, said nearly 20 students have interned with CENIC since its internship program began. Of that figure, four transitioned to full-time CENIC employees while nearly all the others were recruited and hired by separate companies thanks to the experience they gained.

He said the internships provide students with real-world experience, enhancing their employability through training and soft skills development.

“The program has great value,” Izadi said. “Right away, students realize that the work environment is different from the school environment, and they also understand that how much they know isn’t the only thing that matters. It is about how you behave and how you communicate. They’re also developing their resumes – they’re adding things to it. Field experience and work experience is something that’s missing from our program and being able to offer that to students means we are putting them in a better position to get a job.”

CENIC’s internship program has become a source of competition for Cypress College students vying to land a spot. Izadi typically decides which candidates would be best suited for the roles at the end of the school year based on their performance. CENIC’s appeal comes from the fact that it’s a globally recognized and respected fiber networking and management organization, Izadi said.

Interns aren’t merely expected to show up, but rather are tasked with being there on time and fulfilling requirements as they would in a real-world job, he said. This might involve solving problems and troubleshooting or even giving presentations to peers.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity,” Izadi said. “All of these experiences are making our students more employable.”

The internship program is open to all students at California’s universities and community colleges. If you would like to learn more about CENIC's internship program, please contact Network Operations Manager Mike Gong at mgong@cenic.org.

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