Michael Wong was a statistics major at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, when he began a USPS summer internship two years ago.
Wong was assigned to the Operations research team at Postal Service headquarters in Washington, DC.
It turned out to be the first step on a postal career path.
“I knew I could apply my statistics knowledge to help the organization, but I ended up learning new things,” said Wong, who graduated last year and returned to USPS as a data science and exploration specialist.
Each year, the Postal Service offers summer internships to college students like Wong. The 10-week programs are designed to help students gain work experience that can be applied toward their academic pursuits and careers.
“The Postal Service’s summer internships allow us to attract new talent to the organization and invest in the future of our workforce,” said Learning and Development Director Gail Hendrix.
In 2016, Andrea Case became a summer intern in the Pacific Area office while attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her in-plant support work, which helped reduce the number of late incoming and outgoing mail delivery trips, sparked her interest in a USPS career.
“We had relevant important projects from start to finish,” said Case, who is now an operations and industrial engineer at the San Diego Processing and Distribution Center. “I felt we had a lot of responsibility and hands-on experience, which is something I really valued.”
Another intern from that summer, Amy Powell, was a student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh when she worked in the Capital Metro Area office. Part of her job was to track the completion of maintenance projects.
Now an operations and industrial engineer at the Harrisburg, PA, Processing and Distribution Center, Powell decided to come back after graduation because she felt her work wasn’t done.
“I saw opportunities for improvement, and thought a fresh set of eyes could help make people’s jobs easier,” she said.