About Us

InternMakers’ Story

It took us many late night talks, existential crisis, laughs, frustrations, and many other things to get to this point. Often times, we would talk about how mad we would get when we saw amazing students being denied offers. We noticed that it went back to the lack of knowledge, even of what an internship was. There were people who would learn what an internship was until their junior year and therefore only had a small amount of time to prepare for recruiting season. Others, never learned what internships were.

We had helped several students on campus get internships, so we thought “why not help students we can’t see?”. We now live in the amazing era of the internet, where everything is searchable and reachable so it was totally possible. We wanted to share our knowledge of getting internships with not just local students, but also with any student who wants to get an internship. A couple of months later, InternMakers was officially born. We had our first post and video go live on July 2019.

Mariana’s Bio:

I’m 22 years old and I’m studying Electrical Engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso. I currently live in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and cross the border every day to go to school. I have always been passionate about how people don’t get to their maximum potential, not because they are not good enough, but because they are limited to information. In my university, I was able to meet extremely talented people who did not know what an internship was or why they needed to get one. That led me to notice that many students were graduating without having full-time jobs secured. Helping students in my university led me to think that there might be other students across the U.S. who are going through the same things.

Coming from a Hispanic background and being the first from my family to study in the U.S. led me to understand many reasons why people are not getting internships. My parents had no idea what the U.S. education system was like and could never guide me. I truly believe that my curiosity has opened many doors for me. That is how I was able to get indirect mentors that taught me why internships are important. Today, I have had three internships and one research experience in total. One internship with Cummins and two internships with Microsoft as a program manager in hardware. I will be starting a full time job with Microsoft in August 2020.

I have also been awarded various awards throughout my undergrad years such as Forbes Under 30 Scholar, HENAAC Scholar 2017, HENAAC Scholar 2018, Google’s Pass It Forward Challenge. I have had the honor to be selected for Harvard’s Peek Weekend, Google’s Hispanic Student Leadership Summit where I gave my first talk about why there are not enough Latinx people in tech, and was even selected out of all the intern class to interview Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO,  in front of more than 3,000 people. These are achievements that I cherish and never take for granted. I know that I have been given experiences I can use to help others do the same and even better.

In my free time I really enjoy drawing, home decor, fashion, and reading self-development books. I also enjoy having days where I do absolutely nothing, they help me recharge ❤️

Alejandro’s Bio:

I’m a Forward Deployed Software Engineer at Palantir Technologies living in New York City. I majored in Computer Science at the University of Texas at El Paso and I was born and raised in Torreon, Mexico, where I lived for 19 years before moving to the US for college. I was truly shocked by the different opportunities available for students and I managed to get different jobs on-campus as a Webmaster, Web Developer and Mobile App Developer. Even before knowing anything about professional development, I was passionate about helping others, so I joined an organization called Vision Mexico that focused on helping new students with their transition to college in the US.

Coming from Mexico and having no mentors, I had no idea what internships were until my third year of college and I realized that there were a lot more people on the same boat. My curiosity led me to learn about how to get an internship, but I was surprised by how hard it was to prepare for interviews when you have no one to guide you. I was able to get my second internship at an amazing Silicon Valley Software Company called Palantir and I told myself I would do everything in my power to help others find their dream internships as well.

After that internship, I returned to school and convinced the head of Computer Science to hire me as a mentor or professional development advocate to teach students about internships, extracurricular activities, resume building, and interviewing. I decided to become the person I needed the most but never had during college. I truly think that there are brilliant people out there who don’t get professional opportunities only because they don’t know about them or don’t have someone to guide them. I want to change that by teaching students about how to prepare for internships and how to find these opportunities.

Now, as a professional, I have given presentations about “how to get an internship” at conferences in London, UK, Orlando, FL, and El Paso, TX.