4 student interns assist IT Department for new school year

With countless items on their annual summer to do list, A.W. Beattie’s IT Department once again expanded their team by hiring four students as paid interns.

North Allegheny’s Brayden Albert and Jacob Mignella, Northgate’s Caleb Brandt and Shaler Area’s Dominick Leombruno led several IT projects to prepare the Career Center for the 2024-2025 school year. A.W. Beattie Director of Technology Mr. Miller and Senior Systems Technician Alex Gralia oversaw their duties.

“I like that we’re practicing skills for the workplace in a laidback, professional environment,” Dominick said. “It’s like an in between of school and a real job. We have responsibilities, but also we’re learning.”

Each student has used skills learned in A.W. Beattie’s Networking Engineering and Cyber Security program.

“It’s fun to do something different every day, and if you make a mistake, it’s OK because it just means you’re learning something new,” Caleb said. “Also, usually you wouldn’t get to meet every faculty member, but when there’s only four students you get introduced to everyone for a nice work experience. I’ve learned a lot more, especially in expanding what I can do with networking.”

The group has upgraded hundreds of computers for the new school year, disassembled and reassembled hundreds of electronic devices, did maintenance on a variety of printers and completed networking related tasks.

“I like setting up the rooms after they’ve been cleaned,” Dominick said. “It’s fun hooking up the computers, monitors, internet, and power and making it all clean and neat. In one instance, while setting up a room, we had cables that weren’t the correct length for the setup. I made some cables to the correct length, which is something I learned during the school year.”

They each plan to pursue careers in the IT and Cyber Security field.

“It’s been a great experience that we can put on a resume or applications and hopefully gets us more opportunities later on,” Jacob said. “It’s always interesting, especially working with (Mr. Gralia and Mr. Miller), because we’re learning how they think and approach different things.”

With the school year approaching, they are looking forward to completing their tasks.

“We’re on a great pace, so it’s nice to know we’ll complete everything before the summer ends,” Caleb said.