People often say technology is the future, but for some University students, it is also the present. Each summer, tech companies — from software engineering firms to cybersecurity platforms — search for skilled college students to fill their coveted intern roles. The high demand for these jobs often creates a competitive and exhausting recruitment process.
However, the University students who manage to secure these tech internships gain highly valuable work experience. In addition to the technical skills they learn from experts in the industry, interns also get first-hand experience navigating the professional world. Now that they are back on Grounds, these students discuss how their summer projects helped fuel today’s innovations — and how they have been inspired to return to the field to build the tech of tomorrow.
Fourth-year College student Eva Fong is one of these students. For her, stepping into the workforce this summer only enhanced the passion for technology she has cultivated as a computer science major at the University. As an intern for CoStar, a commercial real-estate information and analytics platform, she spent most of her days in their Richmond office working on a new mobile application for field researchers collecting data on real-estate properties.
“Having this position actually made me want to pursue tech even more,” Fong said. “Because I [previously] didn't really have any professional experience, I [wondered if I] only like it because I enjoy it in classes. Now that I have this experience, I know I would love to pursue this in my career.”
Like Fong, fourth-year College student Kylee Laczkovich also held a sought-after internship this summer. She spent her time in McLean, Va. at Booz Allen Hamilton, a technology consulting company.
“I wanted a company with a strong mission, and that I [could] use my skills from U.Va. to come up with good solutions for problems,” Laczkovich said.
Through Booz Allen Hamilton’s Summer Games Internship Program, Laczkovich and three fellow interns spent 10 weeks collaborating on a project that simulated a real “start-up accelerator,” or a program that supports early-stage companies with mentorship and funding. Through this project, Laczkovich and her teammates explored how artificial intelligence may be useful for reducing fraud within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
As students of statistics and computer science, respectively, Laczkovich and Fong’s fascination with the tech industry began long before they landed these internships. Fong’s interest in tech dates back even earlier to her high school days. Prior to attending the University, her STEM-centered program at Governor’s School — a residential summer institute — provided various opportunities to engage with technology and encouraged her to pursue roles in the field later on.
“One of the first things I did was code a very basic website … and I thought it was so cool that I could make something from scratch … without having to invest much money,” Fong said. “Growing up in a low-income family, it's nice to be able to produce something without spending a lot of money and resources.”
Before Fong and Laczkovich could channel her long-standing interest in technology into a professional position, though, they had to endure an extensive recruitment process. While the pressure to find a summer job can create a competitive “internship culture” at the University, Fong said that this collective ambition pushed her to pursue greater opportunities than she would have otherwise.
“Students at U.Va. are very high achieving, so my peers were definitely doing the same thing that I was by trying to find internships,” Fong said. “That does feel like some sort of pressure, but it also motivated me to go out there and find an opportunity for the summer.”
Laczkovich endured a similarly intense recruitment process. Early last year, unlike students at many other universities who tend to start their internship search in the spring, Laczkovich underwent multiple rounds of interviews before fall set in on Grounds.
“I felt the pressure to apply [for internships] all the way in August of the previous summer for something that I wouldn’t be doing until the next summer,” Laczkovich said. “That's just what everyone around me was also doing.”
Even after enduring a long application process and ultimately receiving internship offers, the challenges for Fong and Laczkovich did not quite come to an end. The two had to navigate complex projects and unfamiliar work environments throughout their summers — but by doing so, they underwent periods of profound personal and professional growth.
For Laczkovich, the first challenge emerged as she worked with her fellow interns to generate more ideas for their startup accelerator project. Collaborating could be difficult, given that her three teammates all studied different computer science languages at their respective universities.
“From the technical side, sometimes it's a bit hard to collaborate if one person wants to use a certain language and no one else knows it,” Laczkovich said.
In this specific case, Laczkovich and her team were able to work through their coding differences by sticking mainly to the Python language. Working together through problem-solving scenarios like this, Laczkovich expressed, is what she believes helped her grow the most professionally over the course of her internship.
“Learning how to collaborate with all these different perspectives, synthesize ideas and of course, learning the technical part of different languages [has improved my skills],” Laczkovich said.
Figuring out how to work together productively with her fellow interns allowed Laczkovich to harness the relational skills she had developed at the University, which she said were just as important as skills learned in tech-focused data and computer science classes. Her humanities experiences, not just hard skills, proved indispensable to her success during the internship in a variety of endeavors.
“Being able to think about your audience and how to deliver information to a certain group of people in a way that they will understand [is important],” Laczkovich said. “Some of my English classes have helped me with that.”
Fong also said that her internship spurred professional growth. Along with progress she reported making with React — an open-source JavaScript library CoStar uses to build commercial real estate interfaces — and technology in general, Fong said that she made strides in fostering professional relationships.
“I really didn't know how to act in a professional setting, but because of this internship, I was able to grasp … how to be a part of the team,” Fong said.
Fortunately for those considering a tech internship down the line, inviting office cultures made building corporate relationships easier for both Laczkovich and Fong. Laczkovich said that since Booz Allen Hamilton was very large, she was constantly meeting people, networking and making new friends.
Fong said she experienced a similar culture at CoStar. While corporate America is stereotyped as cultivating harsh, hardcore employees — especially in competitive industries like tech — Fong said that was not her experience. Despite initial worries about making a good first impression, she realized her supervisors were not nearly as “scary” as she had predicted. The first day she met her manager, Fong said, he was wearing jeans and a plain t-shirt.
Even in a welcoming environment, though, Fong said she struggled at times to reach out for help on assignments for fear that it would be burdensome.
“Initially, I had a really hard time asking questions because my mentor and my manager are full-time employees and they have their own tasks and projects that they're working on,” Fong said. “I felt like I was inconveniencing them by asking questions.”
Despite her initial hesitation, Fong summoned the courage to ask for guidance from her supervisors, and she gained valuable insights along the way. By asking questions, she left the internship with more than just technical progress under her belt — she emerged better prepared for the professional world and ready to confidently explore a future in the tech industry.
“The best advice I can give to someone who is going into an internship is to ask questions,” Fong said. “Your mentors and managers want [you] to succeed.”
Read More
‘I Run With Jim’ T-shirt campaign raises over $8,000 for local charities
By Xander Tilock | 2 days agoThe success of the project, and its impact, are a testament to Ryan’s reputation in the community.
10 things I would do differently this syllabus week
By Anna Stamey | 3 days agoIf I could redo my first week at the University, I’d make a few changes — ones that could save me my time, money and sanity.
On embodying ‘Hey There Delilah’
By Mai Hukuoka | August 23, 2025A long-distance relationship – in which the hurdle of communication and staying connected doubles in size – was the bane of my existence, something that I wanted to shy away from for as long as possible
