Booz Allen’s Summer Games: More Than An Internship

We see you eagerly scrolling through social posts and websites looking for an internship program. And really, it’s time. You’re suddenly further along in your college career than you’ve ever imagined. You’ve developed academic and professional interests—things you’ve learned in the classroom and want to practice for real. You want to start building your resume so when you graduate, you’re ready to step into the next phase of your amazing life.

Enter Booz Allen. We have the best internship program around. It’s so different, we call it Summer Games—a 10-week, paid internship that simulates a real-world startup accelerator while being a fun, summer-long competition. 

1.      You’ll work on exciting projects

Your mission for the summer? Develop breakthrough ideas and solutions for our clients’ most pressing problems. “You have a challenging project that you’re in charge of seeing through—from early inception to research, development, prototyping, and presenting,” says Riya Jain, a Johns Hopkins senior. “You get to contribute to something larger and the sense of ownership is wonderful.”

Recent projects have included a tool for federal agencies to assess carbon sequestration on government lands; an online portal to improve the small business administration disaster loan approval process; and a system to detect, analyze, and prevent small, unmanned aircraft systems from encroaching on the areas around U.S. airports. “The beauty of this program is you learn as you do the work, and what you create feels like yours,” says University of Wisconsin–Madison junior, Logan Schwartz. 

2.      You’ll be part of a cross-functional team

Over the course of the summer, you’ll be exposed to a wide array of backgrounds and majors, including other students on your immediate team and expert Booz Allen mentors. These unique perspectives will allow you to see your challenge from different angles. “My teammates and I were able to identify each other’s strengths early on,” says Rutgers senior, Richard Yoo. “We broke the project apart so we could focus on our strengths, but we learned from each other—and leaned on one another—along the way.”

For Logan, it was team diversity that drew her to Summer Games. “As a business major, I have classes with other business students. They’re the only people I see during the school year. It amazed me that this program combines students with different backgrounds and majors because that’s what our careers will look like.”

3.      You’ll take the first steps in your career

This isn’t your typical internship. When you wrap Summer Games in August, you’ll leave with tangible, real-world experiences to draw from in the future.  “I can say that this summer, I had leadership over a project from the start to the very end,” says Riya. “I’ve worked at nonprofits and think tanks and have never been able to claim that before.”

“I’m a student, but I’m also an aspiring consultant,” adds Richard. “Summer Games allowed me and my teammates to get a firsthand look at what it’s like to work on a consulting project. It’s a completely unique experience that pulls the true potential out of students. Summer Games is unlike anything else out there.”