From Intern to Employee: Spectrum Scholars Program Leads to Network Engineer Role with Charter

When college student Mariel Segovia was notified she had been accepted into the Spectrum Scholars program and would receive $20,000 to apply toward college tuition, she almost thought it was a mistake.

“At first I thought it was a spam email, because it was a lot of money,” Segovia said in a recent interview. “I didn’t expect to get that much.”

That “mistake” turned out to be a fantastic mentorship, internship, and career opportunity. Two years later, Segovia has completed her second internship at Charter, graduated from the University of New Haven with a degree in cybersecurity and networks, and is about to start a full-time position working as a Network Engineer with Spectrum Enterprise’s Data Integrity team in Austin, Texas.

Her success is due to the Scholars program, she said, which provides college juniors with $20,000 for tuition to be spread between their junior and senior years, and offers professional development via internship opportunities, training and mentorship.

“The Spectrum Scholars program helped me get to where I am now,” Segovia said. “In my new role I will be using my programming skills to improve automation efforts and data integrity.”

Spectrum Scholars Provides a Pipeline For New Talent

The Scholars program, launched in May 2020, serves to support students representing the diverse communities Spectrum serves and acts as a pipeline for talent entering the Charter workforce.

Segovia completed two internships with Charter prior to being hired — her first supported the Community Impact team at Charter’s Stamford headquarters, and the second supported the Data Integrity Team within Enterprise Service Engineering. Both of those internships, said Segovia, helped pave the way to her new role as a Network Engineer with Spectrum Enterprise.

“I worked on a project and created a script using my programming skills,” said Segovia. “So, I was able to use the skills I had, but also understand the ones that I could gain.”

A Foundation for the Future

Segovia said she hopes to cultivate her career at Charter by growing her understanding of how the network is structured, developing her programming skills, and potentially leveraging her background in cybersecurity down the road.

She is grateful for the strong connections she made as a Spectrum Scholar.

“It is a great program that allows you to meet so many amazing people,” said Segovia. “Everyone I have met has been very kind and very willing to help me succeed. The connections I’ve made have helped me academically, professionally, and personally.”

Click here to learn more about Spectrum Scholars.