2020 Summer Internship Reports: Anthony Stefan
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- Parent Category: blog
- Published on Sunday, 30 August 2020 16:00
Each year, our Workforce Development team offers summer internships for students interested in developing their gateway development skills. Participants are placed at one of several SGCI partner sites. We will be sharing some of our 2020 student interns' experiences in a series of blog posts entitled SGCI Summer Internship Reports.
Featured below is SGCI summer intern Anthony Stefan, a student at the Florida Institute of Technology.
"Being their intern this summer was an honor and exciting as I wished to give back to the community."
Tell us a little about yourself?
I am from Naples, Florida, and currently an applied mathematics graduate student at Florida Tech in Melbourne, Florida. I love the beach! I enjoy throwing the Frisbee and playing video games when I'm not studying, researching, or working. I'm a teacher's assistant at Florida Tech for calculus and pre-calculus courses. I research an area of composite theory in physics, specifically generalizing realizations for synthesis problems. I also seek to specialize in multi-dimensional networks, such as circuit theory. I work for myself at a company I started with my best friend, where we have filed patents on products that innovate technologies across industries.
Where did your Internship take place, and who did you work for?
This internship has taken place with the organization SIMIODE/SCUDEM, and my mentor was Dr. Brian Winkel. I have known Brian for approximately two years. Two years ago, I participated in the SCUDEM experience, a differential equations modeling competition for undergraduate students. This experience opened my eyes to different methods to learn differential equations and where my skills were in mathematics. SIMIODE is an open education online resource that helps fund SCUDEM. Being their intern this summer was an honor and exciting as I wished to give back to the community and provide input on how I think the SCUDEM experience could improve.
What are some things that you learned as a result of this internship?
The internship included tasks such as developing the next announcement for SCUDEM V on the SIMIODE webpage, developing and organizing not only the SIMIODE resources but also their social media accounts, providing student feedback to an online textbook of differential equations that will be available on the SIMIODE website. Therefore, I learned more about differential equations while reading the text. I also learned about new networking pathways and how to navigate web-based communities.
Do you see yourself engaging with SGCI again in the future? Perhaps when you begin your career?
SGCI cultivates community experiences that help people develop and network with each other in a way I have never seen before. I would be interested in hearing about the different opportunities they have for my interest and other science/math communities.
Anything else to add about your internship experience?
I want to thank all of the SGCI and SIMIODE/SCUDEM team for providing me with this opportunity and willing to help me grow as an individual, professional, and mathematician. I learned more each day working with Brian and am inspired by his work ethic, processes, and stories!