JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas –
The 470th Military Intelligence Brigade at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston has selected four students from the University of Texas at San Antonio to participate in a pilot internship program this summer.
The students who will be participating in the internship program are from the UTSA computer science department and will be working within the Open Source Intelligence section of the 470th MIB in day-to-day operations and software development.
Each student will work with a mentor at the brigade during the summer and will earn six college credit hours once the internship is completed. In addition, the students will be able to list the internship on their resumes.
“This is the first time an initiative like this has been undertaken by an U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command unit,” said Jim Price, 470th MIB director of counterintelligence and human intelligence operations and internship project officer.
On May 24, Col. James Royse, 470th MIB commander, and Dr. C. Mauli Agrawal, UTSA interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, signed the agreement for the pilot program at UTSA.
Royse said the internship program will allow the brigade to tap into the knowledge and skill sets offered by the students, particularly in the areas of cyber technology and computer science.
“I think we will see at the end of the summer,” Royse said, “that what the students are able to bring into our current real world missions that we do in support of troops deployed around the world is going to improve our capability to understand and provide information for decisions for commanders and other policy makers that we’re currently supporting. They’ll see how their skill sets get operationalized into intelligence operations through the military for national security strategy, national military strategy objectives and in our case, primarily in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility.”
Agrawal said the pilot program will give students job experience in the field of cyber security and better prepare them for when they enter the workforce.
“We always look to connect our students with real life experiences as much as possible,” Agrawal said. “We are excited about that opportunity for our students and they will bring some skill sets to the military. They will bring new initiatives and new ways of doing things that perhaps others that have been in the field for a long time are not doing anymore. The more we can engage with real life practitioners, like the military and the private sector, the better it is for our students and for the employers.”
The pilot program is part of UTSA’s commitment to support the military in any way it can, said Agrawal.
“We are always eager to work with the military,” he said. “Out of our 29,000 students, 4,000 are military-affiliated, whether they are veterans, active-duty or military family. It is a very large component of our family here. The more we do with the military the better it is for us.”
Royse said he is hoping the internship program can be offered during every term at UTSA and that it will be expanded to include students from other fields and disciplines at the college.
Price said the selection process for the internship program started in January when a panel of 470th MIB members, chaired by Lt. Col. Will Riley, 470th MIB deputy commander, interviewed eight students from the UTSA computer science department who applied for the program. Based on those interviews, the panel selected the four students.
All of the students who were interviewed were pre-screened by the UTSA computer science department to make sure they met all the requirements set forth by the brigade.