CUNY/HRA Program Intern Testimonials


The CUNY/HRA (City University of New York / Human Resource Administration) Internship Program, facilitated through by CISDD (CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development), has been running in existence for more than two years since 2000. Over the past two years, we have more than 60 CUNY undergraduate and graduate computer science students went have gone through the program.

Students work in a variety of HRA locations, applying their technical and professional skills in the areas of consulting, network administration, programming and databases. While receiving practical hands-on training and experience, they assist HRA in achieving their long-term technical objectives. Their dedication and hard working make this program more successful than ever each year. The following are some of the stories and thanks from interns in the program:



Fanghua Xia, HRA MIS, Full-Time, 2002 HRA Intern
"CUNY/HRA program gave me a better understanding of enterprise technology. I was able to learn programming in Visual Basic, improve my troubleshooting skills in many different software related issues, and undertake installation ofsome complex software packages. To me this was a good learning experience in programming, networking, and database management. Upon mastering these skills, I was hired to work in my current position and current project without any problems.
CUNY/HRA program also improved my inter-personal skills, as I had to interact with different groups of people to resolve technical issues. During the course of the CUNY/HRA program, I was given the same standard and requirements to the employees and consultants and it became the best experience of my CUNY education."

Ahmed Feroz, IT Consultant (Developer/Analyst), HRA GSS, Full-Time, 2001 HRA Intern
"The internship with HRA helped me to put my classroom education into perspective. My supervisor was very helpful in this regard. He encouraged me to take initiative and learn new products. Like many other organizations, many of the applications in HRA are legacy systems. The HRA Employees are knowledgeable when it comes to legacy systems but not very aware of many new technologies. So in the internship program the knowledge transfer is not one- way, it's a two-way flow. As an intern I showed how we could achieve productivity using some of the newer technologies.
My classroom education was complemented by my internship at HRA. I could relate my education with real life application. This made me confident in searching for jobs. This helped me in getting the job."

Joel Diaz, Software Developer-- Eastman Kodak Company, NY, 2002 HRA Intern
"The CUNY/HRA program was a great experience. It provided me with the opportunity to obtain professional experience in the Computer field. It stood out on my resume."

Jane Katsman, Trainee Analyst-- CitiGroup, NY, 2002 HRA Intern
"The CUNY program helped me establish myself in the workplace and gave me a good starting experience. It is a good and stable job for full-time college students. I spent 2 years in the program after which I found an internship in Citigroup and now they extended it to a full-time job offer. I can definitely say thanks to the CUNY internship program for giving me an opportunity to start my career."

Hongliang Qiang, Programmer/Web Developer/DBA, Acecape Inc. NYC, 2001 HRA Intern
"To me, the working experience in HRA program was invaluable, especially since it was the first IT job I ever got. I gained a lot of technical knowledge, and industrial teamwork skills. It was a great help to me in getting and keeping my current job as a programmer.
The program also provided a great opportunity for me to meet and cooperate with people from other professions, as well as fellow CUNY students from other campuses. All this was a very good preparation for my post-graduate career."

Abhishek Gupta, Verizon, Dallas, 2002 HRA Intern
"I must say that the internship at HRA, facilitated through CISDD, played a major role in shaping my nascent career. I wish to acknowledge your efforts and thank you for the same. I hope the current students who are enrolled in the program make the best use of it in shaping their career and that CISDD expands in providing even better opportunities to the participating students."

Sabina Rahman, 2002 HRA Intern
"The HRA internship has enhanced my skills in technical support, web development, training and most of all in communication."

Pratik Shah, 2002 HRA Intern
"I am currently doing my MS in CIS at Baruch College. Though I have been learning a lot from my courses at Baruch, HRA gave me the opportunity to put all those technologies I had learned in class to practice.
My current position with the HRA involves autonomous responsibility for the development and implementation of many applications. Thanks to the hands-on experience I have had in a high-pressure business environment, my analytical skills related to business have sharpened considerably. HRA has helped me to get accustomed to working in teams. This experience has also taught me how to work in a real-time environment where there are deadline pressures and also how to deal with different kinds of people - from end users (layman) to supervisors to Directors (Project Managers).
I feel my internship at HRA has given me a lot of hands-on experience and has helped me demonstrate outstanding organizational skills and I really hope the CUNY/HRA program continues, so that students can take advantage of this rare opportunity which can lead to their future goal."

Sanket Deshpande, 2002 HRA Intern
"I joined NYC HRA as an IT Specialist Intern in November 2002. I was immediately assigned to the Print on Demand Project, which is an automized printing system that covers more than 50 HRA offices. Through this project I got exposure to a very large WAN (network). I was able to learn Network Protocols; configurations of high end commercial LaserJet Printers, routers and other networking devices such as modems. I have also help set up a database for this project which keeps a track of the LaserJet printers assigned to various offices. Although I work only 19 hours a week, from day one work has been fulfilling and every day has been a challenge that has helped me learn more."

Jing Zou, 2002 HRA Intern
"I am writing to express my thanks to CISDD and CUNY/HRA for offering such tremendous opportunities to CUNY students to learn programming and other skills and gain valuable real life working experience.
I took B1 and B2 classes, organized by CISDD, which helped me a lot in being a web master at Columbia University for Prof. Nicholas Turro. And it also helped me at my part-time position at the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning. With all the experience I gained from these two positions from January 2002 to September 2002, I got the internship position at Homecare Services department of HRA as an IT specialist in October 2002.
Now, together with my colleagues at in the IT department (also beneficiaries of this intern program), I am working on three online applications for Homecare Services department. (PERS, ALPS and CMS)
Taking software engineering course this semester at the Graduate Center/CUNY, I found it much easier for me to understand the theoretical topic with my real life working experience. At the same time, my course helps me to do my job more efficiently and systematically. From user requirement analysis at the beginning to software testing and technical support at the end, I encountered almost every topic in the text at my work. I am so happy to apply what I learned from text to work. And I believe that is the ultimate goal of studying.
I just got a teaching position at one of the CUNY colleges. Even though teaching is different from what I am doing now at HRA, all my previous and current working experience gave me the confidence and capability to take this new job. Moreover, I can present to the students my own experience in addition to theory in the text."

JiYu Gan, 2002 HRA Intern
"It's been two years now since I started working for Medicaid Office of Procedures as an intern. The HRA Internship Program has provided with invaluable experience to me. I see this Internship Program as a bridge, a tunnel, or a door, which connects the knowledge, and skills I learned from college to the real world.
College study gives me insight into computer technology and tools or skills that could make valuable contribution to many information technology needs. However, there's a gap between school teaching and real world needs. Although many professors are trying hard to make their teaching more practical, the gap is only reduced but not eliminated. By school standards, a C++ program needs to be well-structured and designed, and its running speed calculated by Big O notation. It has to be perfect to suit academic purposes. The perfecting process will take as long as it needs. Real world C++ applications demand efficiency and meeting of timelines. The priority is to get the job done. This difference then leads to two different approaches towards solving a problem. If a student is right out of school and finds himself facing a programming job, it is difficult to take the approach that suits the real world needs. An internship program, on the other hand, provides students the opportunity to close the gap. In the past two years, I find myself going back and forth between job and school. School feeds me with new knowledge and skills, and then I bring them to work and look for every opportunity to apply and test up them to make my job more efficient. At the same time, questions and problems arise from work, and then I take these back to school to look for answers and solutions. During this process over the past two years, I have refined my skills and at the same time, feedback from the real world brings me a better understanding of school teaching and hints me what I have yet to learn. More importantly, I have come to the realization that work is not only to get the job done, but also to build relationships between people and teamwork is the best practice to get things done. The only way to have a true understanding of the real world is to experience it.
When I graduate from college, I know will be ready for the real world because I have been well trained as an HRA intern. "

YuWei Zhang (Elaine), DBA, American International Group (AIG), 2002 HRA Intern
"The experience I got from the internship with HRA really helped me in getting my job, as well as being prepared for that job. I gained not only hands-on experience, but also the ability of how to work in a real life environment."

Luthfa Begum, HRA Intern 2002
"I have been working for this internship program with HRA since 2000. This internship has given me a tremendous amount of experience that I did not accomplish anywhere else working as an Intern. I have developed skills related to my study fields, such as, Programming, Database development using Access, Oracle, documentation, and extensive data modeling using Visio etc.... I am ready to use this skills and knowledge that I have developed over this two years for a real endeavors."

Fanshu Li, 2002 HRA Intern
"I couldn't be more grateful to the CUNY/HRA program, which offers me a great opportunity to get in touch with the outside world, put what I have learned in class into practical use and more importantly learn new skills. Though I have only worked as an intern in this program for a little more than four months, I have gained valuable experience and learned a great deal from my daily work and from my colleagues. I felt very happy when I transferred an ASCII file to MSAccess table using JAVA. Knowing nothing about INFORMIX-4GL/SQL at the very beginning, now I can generate complicated reports using INFORMIX-4GL/SQL. Looking forward to doing more and learning more, I will cherish such a golden working opportunity. And I hope this program will provide more CUNY students with better opportunities!"

Rami Habas, 2002 HRA Intern
"I would like to express my gratitude and full satisfaction of my work with MIS at HRA.
I have been working as part of the MIS staff at 111 EIGHTH AVENUE since November and it was all possible through the internship program carried out by CISDD and in particular, the people I have been working with. This internship has been very helpful for my career and personal growth. I have been able to combine all the knowledge that I have gained from school with real world experience. Moreover, I can openly state that both the MIS staff and I have been the beneficiaries of this experience."

Vishal Talreja, 2002 HRA Intern
"I think that the CUNY/HRA internship program is a stepping stone for a successful career ahead. I would definitely recommend this program to anyone interested in an IT internship."

HongBin Wang (Cathy), 2002 HRA Intern
"I think the CUNY/HRA program is very useful not only to me but also to HRA according to my working experience in HRA: I have been working in MIS Department of HRA since June 2001. During this period, I developed the intra/internet web applications for different agencies of HRA. I not only learned a lot of new IT technologies, but also improved my system analysis ability and English level. My users and boss are very satisfied with my job. Now I am developing a new Internet web application-UAP/Heatline, a very important project in HRA."

XiaoYa Chen (Iris), 2002 HRA Intern
"I am currently working at the MIS division of HRA as a Unix System Administrator. I have been enrolled in this internship program for more than a year. I have gained invaluable experience in web development, database management and various OS environments. The internship at HRA, facilitated by CISDD, played a major role in shaping my nascent career. I wish to acknowledge your efforts and thank you for providing this opportunity to us working in the real world environment. I hope that CISDD expands in providing even better opportunities to the participating students."

Khaja S. Mohammed Irfan, 2002 HRA Intern
"I joined this program more than a year ago and during that year I have learned as much or even more than I have learned in college. CUNY/HRA program gave me the business experience while developing my computer science and interpersonal skills needed to have a head start when emerging from an internship status into the a real job. An Internship is a job in itself; people in the HRA program treat you as one of their own employees, and it never felt feel like I was am just an intern. I was always a part of a team.
This internship has helped me to learn different types of programming languages and software tools needed to be successful in the job market. As a CUNY student, this program proves to be the best way to have a great head start in collecting the experience required when applying for career defining jobs.
All the interns would agree when I say that their work somehow in the smallest possible way contributes to the enhancement of the organization that they are working for. The people at the organization care for and take us as one of their own, teaching and enlightening us with their experience. The supervisors take time out of their busy schedules to make sure everything is in place for us to work in. They provide the support necessary for us to take advantage of all the things available and to learn along the way.
If an Internship is about learning; there is no doubt that the CUNY/HRA program excels in that attribute."