Image by Brooke Coupal Computer science majors Rohan Paranjape, right, and Viktor Akhonen, left, interned with SAIC last summer.
Students are taking the cyberscience skills they learn at UMass Lowell and applying them to real-world challenges alongside industry professionals.
Rohan Paranjape, who recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, was one of 13 UMass Lowell undergraduate students who interned last summer with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a global leader in technology integration and a partner in the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor (LINC). Over eight weeks, he gained cloud computing skills through his support of Cloud One, a secure cloud platform managed by the U.S. Air Force and used by the Department of Defense to develop, deploy and scale mission-critical digital applications that leverage the latest commercial technologies.
“The internship was beneficial, because it helped solidify the specific job that I want to do,” Paranjape says. “I found that I’m most interested in DevOps/systems engineering, which led me to apply for a position as a systems security engineer at Raytheon.”
Raytheon, a major U.S. defense contractor within RTX Corporation, hired Paranjape for the full-time position, which he started after Commencement. Paranjape also recently commissioned into the Massachusetts Army National Guard as a Cyber Warfare Officer. He will be attending the Cyber Basic Officer Leadership Course in Fort Gordon, Georgia. Paranjape was a part of the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) at UMass Lowell.
“My experience with CCDC (Northeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition) and the SAIC internship, as well as being an ROTC cadet, set me apart when I applied for these roles,” he says. “If I didn’t go to UMass Lowell, I don’t know where I would be. The opportunities that I’ve had here have been tremendous.”