Sprinternships

These quick (hence the sprint!) immersive paid internships give you work experience and a tech-industry résumé credential that can help you to land your first summer tech internship.

Sprinternships are a key part of Break Through Tech Chicago’s mission, which is to advance the tech careers of women and nonbinary people and enhance gender diversity in the tech sector. Sprinternships are designed for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors at UIC who plan to pursue a tech education and career.

While certain majors and minors (such as computer science, data science, CS + design, or computer science and linguistics) are more common among Sprinterns, we are happy to receive applications from UIC students in other majors who have career plans that involve technology or tech innovation.

Sprinternships

Three transformative weeks.

Sprinternships are designed by the organizations that host them, so each experience is unique in many ways. These are three weeks that you can call your own. However, all Sprinternships are built around several common features:

  • Company overview: Knowing about the inner working of organizations can help you to think in new ways about the career paths that might be in your future. You will meet with a range of your organization’s internal departments and learn more about what people do.
  • Challenge project: Your Sprinternship organization will identify a business problem for you to work on. You’ll have the chance to collect background information, size up the problem, come up with a creative solution that uses technology, and pitch it to the leadership team.
  • Teamwork! In real life, challenges are solved when people work together. Employees from your sponsor organization will work with you, providing details and guidance along the way. You might have a chance to work with other Sprinterns, too.
  • Résumé reviews: You likely get résumé help at school, but an industry perspective can offer extra value. Staff from your Sprinternship organization will review your résumé and give suggestions for new experiences you could seek out to improve it even further.

Additional program details can be found in the tabs below.  Application information will be made available on this website as soon as it is live.

Who can apply?

We welcome Sprinternship applications from Break Through Tech Chicago members and UIC undergraduate students (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors) who are interested in pursuing a career in tech. Most Sprinterns major or minor in computer science, data science, computer science and linguistics, or other tech-oriented disciplines, but students in other majors who have a strong interest in a tech career also are welcome to apply. To apply for a Sprinternship, you must:

  • Be enrolled in and actively taking classes at UIC during the spring semester immediately before the Sprinternship takes place
  • Have a GPA of 2.5 or higher
  • Have the required work authorization to work within the United States, if you are an international student
  • Feel a sense of alignment with Break Through Tech Chicago’s mission of preparing more women (cis and trans) and nonbinary individuals for jobs in the tech world