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Students say Hilliard City Lab internships gave hands-on engineering experience and career readiness
Summary
Students and commenters at a public meeting described the Hilliard City Lab high school tech internship program as providing real-world engineering skills, teamwork experience and local business connections that helped some pursue careers and start companies.
Students and other commenters at a public meeting in Central Ohio praised a partnership with Hilliard City Lab for giving high school students hands-on engineering experience and exposure to industry skills.
Student Intern 1, a student intern, said, “Central Ohio really is the Silicon Heartland, and there's so many opportunities for kids that they don't get in a traditional high school. So we need to bring experts from business and industry into the classrooms, and also provide opportunities for our students to get outside of the traditional buildings. And so partnerships like the 1 we have with Hilliard City Lab is is really important. The students that got to intern through the high school tech internship program, it has helped change the trajectory of their lives.”
The program was described as teaching technical skills and workplace habits. Student Intern 3 said interns learned “different practices of engineering, like 3 d printing and modeling, the use of AI and coding. You also learn how to work as a team and go through deadlines.” Student Intern 2 said the experience made them feel ready for next steps: “I actually do feel ready for tomorrow. I feel like all of these experiences help solidify, like, for high school students what they wanna do with their lives.”
A commenter linked the internship pipeline to local business formation, saying, “We did a project with a student from Ohio State. He ended up starting his own company, and now he's located in our facility and has access to our interns.” The same commenter called participating students “opportunity ambassadors” and said the partnership among Hilliard City Lab, the city of Hilliard and the local school district centers students and families.
Participants described the program as a workforce pipeline: exposing students to engineering tasks, collaboration and deadlines, and connecting them with local employers and entrepreneurs. No formal action or vote was recorded in the transcript excerpt; these remarks appeared during the public-comment portion of the meeting.
