Summer Sustainability Internship Equips Community College Students for Success
Alejandro Hernandez takes his education very seriously. He’s the first in his family to attend college, pursuing majors in both chemistry and computer science at Cerritos Community College in Norwalk, Calif.
“I can see myself working at a research-based job in the future,” he says. And to help him get there, he applied for — and earned a spot in — the USC-Cerritos College Summer Research Internship in Sustainability, based at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Conceived in 2010 by Richard Brutchey, professor of chemistry at USC Dornsife, and Jeff Bradbury, professor of chemistry at Cerritos College, the program pairs Cerritos undergraduate students with graduate student mentors from USC Dornsife’s Department of Chemistry. The goal is to encourage community college students to pursue degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.