City Colleges Expands Information Technology
Internship Program with Accenture
In 2016, Danica Lohja was one of the first City Colleges of
Chicago (CCC) graduates to participate in an innovative
program at Accenture (NYSE: ACN), where she gained and
utilized valuable skills in information technology (IT). After
successfully completing the one-year program, she and three other
former interns are now full-time Accenture employees. Accenture has
also hired eight new interns, doubling the size of its original
City Colleges internship cohort.
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Accenture extended full-time employment offers to four
participants in its internship program, all four of whom are
graduates of Wright College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago,
and the Center for Excellence in information technology education.
After completing the one-year internship, they have accepted
full-time positions in Accenture’s IT department located in
downtown Chicago—Danica as an ecosystem product and services
analyst, two of her colleagues as software engineering analysts and
one as a software engineering associate.
Through the relationship with CCC, Accenture provides City
Colleges graduates with rotational internships within its internal
technology team. These paid internships are designed to help
students learn and implement a variety of IT solutions within the
company’s dynamic global business environment. The internship
program expanded in 2017 – with eight CCC graduates starting the
program this summer, all from Wright College.
“Through the College to Careers initiative, City Colleges
students are being prepared for the rigors and realities of today’s
workplaces – both in the classroom and through programs like
Accenture’s IT internship,” said Juan Salgado, chancellor of City
Colleges of Chicago. “The intern-to-employee model provides
opportunities for our students to demonstrate their value and
potential to employers.”
Jim Coleman, Chicago Office Managing Director of Accenture,
said: “Local apprenticeships like these ignite an interest in
specific technology fields through hands-on experience, helping to
build the pipeline needed to address the skills shortage faced by
Chicago employers. We are so pleased to welcome our City Colleges
graduates and interns to Accenture.”
In 2016, City Colleges of Chicago announced a collaboration with
Accenture to help enhance and shape the IT curriculum at City
Colleges, as part of the community college system’s College to
Careers initiative. All colleges in CCC offer IT courses. Wright
College offers all degree programs and leads the system’s
effort.
College to Careers aligns each of the seven City Colleges with a
high-demand career sector and connects faculty and staff with
leading employers and four-year universities to prepare students
for the tens of thousands of jobs coming to the Chicagoland region
over the next decade, 24,000 of which are expected to be in IT.
Wright College graduate Danica Lohja didn’t know what to expect
when she began her internship at Accenture last year, but she was
excited about the opportunity. “My classes and experience at Wright
helped a lot in terms of improving my soft skills, problem solving
and connecting with smart students and instructors – helping me
feel confident about the internship,” Danica said. “I didn’t know
what to expect joining such large organization with broad and
complex business model. I just knew I made the right decision
because I wanted to get my foot in the IT Industry, and based on my
research, Accenture sounded like a perfect fit for me.”
Danica earned an associate degree in Computer Information
Systems at Wright with high honors in 2016. In addition to her
full-time job at Accenture as an Ecosystem Product and Services
Analyst, she is also pursuing a bachelor’s degree at Northeastern
Illinois University.
Robert Kerby turned his computer hobby into a career and an
opportunity for lifelong learning. He is now employed full-time at
Accenture as a Software Engineering Associate. “Since IT changes
all the time you have to keep learning and getting more
experience,” he said.
Upon starting his internship with Accenture last year, Robert’s
goal was to be part of the team, learn as much as possible and gain
more responsibilities. During his internship, Robert drew upon his
experience from his IT classes at Wright College: “All of the
struggling I did in classes to troubleshoot my problems helped me
out. Also, you have to work as a team and since we worked in teams
in my classes, that also prepared me,” Robert said.
Robert says he looks forward to learning from and supporting his
team in his full-time position as a Software Engineering Associate,
where he will handle programming related tasks such as coding,
testing and implementation. In addition to thriving in his new
role, Robert is also considering pursuing his bachelor’s degree in
IT.
Rigoberto Velazquez recently transitioned from his internship to
a full-time position as a Software Engineering Analyst with
Accenture. “When I first decided I would pursue IT as a career, I
felt it would be a long uphill battle. When I received this
internship, I was beside myself with gratitude. Wright College has
leveraged their relationship with a great company and provided me
with an opportunity to start my career on a solid foundation,”
Rigoberto said.
Wilbur Wright College is City Colleges’ Center of Excellence for
IT, offering several associate degree and certificate programs in
disciplines that include computer science, networking systems and
technology, web development and more, as well as a full complement
of associate degree programs leading to transfer and employment.
City Colleges students may begin their IT studies at any of the
seven City Colleges.
About City Colleges of Chicago
The City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) is the largest community
college system in Illinois and one of the largest in the nation,
with 5,500 faculty and staff serving more than 90,000 students
annually at seven colleges and five satellite sites city-wide. CCC
is in the midst of a Reinvention, a collaborative effort to review
and revise programs and practices to ensure students leave CCC
college- and career-ready. CCC’s College to Careers initiative
partners with industry-leading companies to prepare Chicagoans for
careers in growing fields.
The City Colleges of Chicago includes seven colleges: Richard J.
Daley College, Kennedy-King College, Malcolm X College,
Olive-Harvey College, Harry S Truman College, Harold Washington
College and Wilbur Wright College. The system also oversees the
Washburne Culinary Institute, the French Pastry School, two
restaurants, two cafes, a banquet facility, five Child Development
Centers, the Center for Distance Learning, the Workforce Academy,
the public broadcast station WYCC-TV Channel 20 and radio station
WKKC-FM 89.3. For more information about City Colleges of Chicago,
call (773) COLLEGE or visit www.ccc.edu.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170727005454/en/
City Colleges of ChicagoAngela O’Connor, + 1
312-553-2788aoconnor5@ccc.eduorAccentureJenn Francis, + 1
630-338-6426jennifer.francis@accenture.com
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