ARMY ATC: The U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center Automotive Directorate plans, conducts, analyzes and reports the results of developmental tests, production tests, and other tests specifically focused in the areas of ground and amphibious manned and unmanned vehicles, vehicular weapons and fire control systems. (Photo by Pvt. Joseph Burns, U.S. Army National Guard)
DOD summer internship program offers college students hands-on experience and a leg up to start their federal civilian career.
by Holly DeCarlo-White
In support of the National Defense Strategy, developing programs with which DOD aims to “build the bench,” or gain fresh talent has become an important focus to maintain critical acquisition positions supporting our warfighters and the nation. Since 2020, the DOD College Acquisition Internship Program (DCAIP), has been recruiting undergraduates, from any degree discipline, in universities across the U.S. to participate in paid summer internships within DOD offices, with a hiring opportunity upon graduation. The 10- to 12-week internship is one program of many centrally funded by the Human Capital Initiatives (HCI) Office.
“An internship with the Department of Defense isn’t your typical summer job,” said Kristine Faria, DCAIP program manager for the Army and acquisition education and training manager for the Army Director of Acquisition Career Management (DACM) Office. “DCAIP interns work for the United States, supporting the nation’s defense—they support America’s Soldiers and they also support the DOD acquisition mission. They have opportunities to participate in activities such as designing, testing and procuring weapon, transportation and [information technology] systems.”
Though all majors are eligible to apply for DCAIP, Faria said science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students and those studying digital areas are especially in demand and highly sought after. Last year, more than half of the Army DCAIP interns were studying digital fields focused on subjects such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer science, engineering, information technology, network architecture, crypto, cybersecurity, data science and analytics, robotics and more.
In January 2023, Ronald R. Richardson Jr., director of the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center and the Army Director of Acquisition Career Management, said that accelerating the digital transformation of the workforce is a priority, and encourages acquisition professionals to train early, and often.
“Acquisition is complex,” Faria said. “Being a DCAIP intern introduces the student to the world of Army acquisition and prepares them, after graduation, to step right into a permanent job in the acquisition workforce and make immediate contributions.”
CAREER FAIR: DOD organization participation in career fairs aids student awareness to civilian career path options. (Photo by Janecze Wright, Fort Hood Public Affairs)
RECRUITING AND DIVERSITY
The HCI mission, under the Defense Acquisition University, supports DOD and defense acquisition workforce initiatives. The acquisition workforce leads essential support activities that support our warfighters, including maintaining critical equipment; acquiring and sustaining weapons; providing base support, logistics and engineering expertise; administering family support programs; conducting business operations; and providing medical care to ensure service members are trained and ready around the world.
“What DCAIP is about is not just thinking about the workforce the way it is today, but how should it be tomorrow, in 2030 and beyond?” said Elizabeth Bryant, director of the HCI.
The HCI team handles all recruitment outreach for DCAIP, and then fields applicants to the Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force (which joined the program for the first time last year) and several Fourth Estate agencies. Fourth Estate agencies are DOD organizations not within a military department, such as the Defense Logistics Agency, the Defense Health Agency and the Missile Defense Agency, to name a few. HCI targets universities near locations where participating DOD organizations are seeking interns, as well as the top universities in the U.S., including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions and this year, outreach was increased to ensure Predominantly Black Institutions were engaged via their career services offices. HCI also runs social media campaigns (paid and organic) to help outreach efforts, they host virtual live information sessions, and have developed informational videos and participant spotlights for their website to raise awareness about the program.
Applications for the 2024 summer program closed in mid-October 2023 and the overall response “exceeded expectations,” Bryant said. HCI received 2,486 applications—of which 1,856 were qualified, meeting the application criteria. DCAIP applications are carefully reviewed and distributed to each branch’s services program manager (Faria for the Army), aiming to match applicant interests, locations and command needs.
COMMAND OUTREACH
Each year, typically during the fourth quarter, Faria and the Army DACM Office reach out to the respective acquisition career management advocates (ACMAs) to solicit requests for DCAIP interns. However, “not all organizations have an ACMA,” she said, and organization requests must be coordinated through an ACMA, or ACMA designee.
The command organization has the final hire authority for an intern based on its mission and the individual applicant interview. There is no command requirement to have a full-time position available following the internship period and there is no service agreement for intern participation in DCAIP; it is treated like any other paid summer job and an opportunity for students to gain experience and insight into working within DOD.
In 2023, only 48 of the 55 DCAIP slots within Army organizations were filled for various reasons from students, time commitment, location, competing opportunity, etc. However, Katelyn Keegan, senior human capital manager for HCI, confirmed that no funding is “lost” when positions are not filled. HCI reallocates any unused funds to other program priorities ensuring that funding is used to the fullest each year to benefit workforce initiatives.
A NEW OPPORTUNITY: Aaron Feld sits in his office at U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center, where he is now a full-time federal civilian employee. Feld was part of the first Army DCAIP in summer 2020. (Photo by Deirdre S. Cascardo, U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center Public Affairs)
JOINING THE TEAM
HCI hosts a LinkedIn group for alumni so they can support each other and keep in touch. It is also an avenue for new interns to connect and ask questions of those who have been in their spot before.
“Knowledge sharing is very important when one considers entering the civil service,” Bryant said. “There is a myriad of ways between the services and the Fourth Estate so any opportunity to help someone with a lesson learned or share a contact that works for me, or why this path resonates with me, is always a great opportunity to help bring people into the acquisition workforce.”
After the student completes 10 weeks working as a DCAIP intern and graduates with a bachelor’s degree, they can be converted to a full-time entry-level position in the acquisition workforce with DOD.
“This is a big deal,” Faria said. “It means that the student doesn’t have to apply for a permanent position and compete against other applicants for the job.”
Yet only 20% of Army DCAIP participants (21 out of a total 111 interns) have taken advantage of federal civilian job placement available to those who have successfully completed the internship joining the Army Acquisition Workforce. HCI advised placement across all branches of service is about 25%, as federal service may not be for everyone—and that is the point. Internships like DCAIP provide an avenue for students to test the waters before graduation.
That experience was “absolutely worth it” and “life changing” for Aaron Feld, who was part of the first Army DCAIP iteration in summer 2020. Feld learned about the internship after a family member forwarded a posting from USAJobs. As a junior majoring in game design and development at Rochester Institute of Technology, the completion of two internships was a requirement, and DCAIP was a perfect fit. Feld said DOD was “on the list” to apply for coding jobs following graduation as organizations such as the National Security Agency and Microsoft had attended his school’s career fairs.
During DCAIP, Feld was hired for the summer by the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center (ATC) within the Automotive Directorate’s Reliability, Availability, Maintainability/Integrated Logistics Support Branch, where he joined a project that focused mostly on front-end web design, something he already had experience with as part of his major.
“It was the first time I was able to put into practice everything I was learning in school, and I was able to get a feel for a real-life work environment,” he said.
At the end of the internship, Army ATC stayed in contact with Feld and asked if he was interested in accepting a job.
“That was an immediate plus,” Feld said in making the decision to join the Army civilian team. “But also, I liked the work that I was doing. It was meaningful and had an immediate impact, so when the opportunity presented itself, I took it.”
The decision of any college graduate to choose a career path is not without weight, especially for those with highly demanded digital skillsets. It’s a fact that the salary overall in federal service is significantly lower than industry in digital fields like coding, Feld said, and can be a factor for graduates, but “on the flip side, government provides a far stabler long-term investment both for job security and salary over time,” he said.
Another known factor for today’s graduates is job flexibility. DOD offices and military installations are not always easily accessible and due to the nature of the positions, they often require work in-person. Since COVID, although teleworking within DOD has improved, Feld said, at U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command and other organizations there is still a two-day in-person requirement each pay period. “Within a rapidly shifting landscape where people want to be able to work from anywhere, having even two days over a two-week period that you need to be in person can be a turnoff for some because it is not completely remote.”
“Sometimes people look at immediate salaries and job placements but don’t necessarily consider, ‘where am I going to be in five or 10 years’ when they are first graduating college,” he said, so ultimately, he decided that having something that was more of a long-term investment was the better path for him. Feld was hired by ATC through the two-year Army Fellows Program designed to hire and develop future leaders from college, and his role today as an information technology specialist is mostly the same as what he experienced during his internship.
“The Army has offered a lot of valuable experiences,” he said, as well as continuing opportunities for training and education to keep the pace with industry in a digital field.
CONCLUSION
“The Army is focused on developing the digital acumen of its acquisition employees, and DCAIP is playing a role in that,” Faria said. “Entry-level employees, especially college students and recent graduates, are an essential part of the recruiting and hiring effort. This generation grew up using computers, mobile devices and social media. They quickly pick up the new technology that they’re likely to encounter when working in acquisition. DCAIP allows Army acquisition to bring members of this talented group into its workforce.”
“This is a time of great change,” Feld said of digital transformation in the Army. “I am excited to see where this is going.”
Each year, the DOD College Acquisition Internship Program application window opens from September to October and interviews are conducted through February. The internship period runs May/June through August.
For more information, go to https://www.hci.mil or email DoDcollegeinternship@dau.edu.
HOLLY DECARLO-WHITE provides contract support to the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, as a writer and editor for Army AL&T magazine for SAIC. Previously, she was a public affairs specialist at U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart, Germany. She holds a B.S. in merchandising management from the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, and has more than a decade of communications and operations experience in the private sector.
