Tech elective leads to internship for junior Anna Scovill
Tech elective leads to internship for junior Anna Scovill Heading link
Junior Anna Scovill has a lot to look forward to this spring: a return to competition on the UIC women’s swim team and a summer internship with Molex, a large manufacturer of electronic, electrical, and fiber-optic connectors and switches.
Scovill heard about the internship opportunity from Danilo Erricolo, her professor for ECE 322, Introduction to Electromagnetics and Applications. Armed with his recommendation, she interviewed for the position just before the new year.
“I was very nervous,” Scovill recalled. “The man who interviewed me was so nice. He didn’t care if I knew the answers to his questions so much as he wanted to see what my thought process was.”
Scovill will be working in Molex’s electromagnetics department, focusing on specific projects, likely working with another intern. She’s grateful she didn’t wait until fall to take ECE 322.
“I wasn’t going to take the tech elective; I wanted to get core classes out of the way. But Professor Erricolo thought I’d be really good for this class and for this internship,” she said.
This won’t be Scovill’s first time at Molex; she toured the company on a field trip while she was a student at nearby Metea Valley High School.
Since her days as a student at Metea Valley, Scovill has known she wanted to study electrical engineering. Her high school participates in Project Lead the Way, a nationally recognized four-year pre-engineering program. She said she liked the electronics class she took and has always enjoyed physics.
Scovill’s decision to attend UIC for school started with the pool: she has attended swim meets here since she was a young child and came on a recruiting weekend her senior year of high school.
“I didn’t think I wanted to go to school in the city, but as soon as I saw the campus I was extremely happy—it is a real campus. I fell in love with the team and the coaches. It felt like a family,” Scovill said. “And UIC has such a good engineering college. Those things put together didn’t make my choice very hard on where to go.”
She is hopeful this opportunity with Molex will help her decide where in electrical engineering to focus her career.
She hopes to perhaps one day work in energy or in a capacity to expand internet in other countries to “truly help people who need help.”
Her advice to her fellow students is to take advantage of the resources available at UIC.
“Don’t be afraid to talk to your professors. I didn’t go my freshman or sophomore year, I didn’t want to feel stupid. But if I hadn’t gone to Professor Erricolo’s office I wouldn’t have gotten this opportunity,” Scovill said.