TyShaun W

Philip O. Berry Academy of Information Technology

Charlotte, NC

“I was enrolled in a course in digital video and media with one other student when the head of Information Technology at our school offered us the choice to do an internship instead. She asked, ‘How would you like to do an internship in the school?’ I didn’t even know they offered one. It counted as a credit and we would get to do what interested us. Every day, I reported to our school’s network engineers who said, ‘Here’s what we have to do today.’ They put me on a task somewhere in the school and I just did it. Once, I got to reconfigure a network tool that allows administrators to control the mouse on any computer in the school. That’s something I’d never done before.

“I like how my resume looks. I’m taking the future one step at a time. I’m going to college to see what I like, see what I don’t like, and go with the flow. My parents have told me, ‘Half the stuff you’re doing, we never imagined doing at your age or at your grade level.’ It makes them very proud of me. It makes them happy that I’m learning, growing, and achieving.”