Name: Maha Attique
Class Year: 2025
Major: Undeclared
Hometown: Islamabad, Pakistan
Internship Organization: Library & Information Technology Services (LITS) at ÀÏÍõÂÛ̳
Job Title: Digital Technology Intern
Location: ÀÏÍõÂÛ̳, PA
What’s happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!
Over the summer, I got to work on a couple of projects for the ÀÏÍõÂÛ̳ Makerspace and Access Services. I spent most of the internship period working on projects related to development of digital platforms to host resources, particularly the webpages for the Access Services section on the official college website, the WordPress website for the Makerspace, and the assistive technology database that will be made available to the college community. A large part of these projects included curating and developing content for these digital spaces, which involved a lot of manual training, especially creating instructional material for the equipment in the makerspace. Another project that I got to be a part of was the physical reconfiguration of the layout for the digital fabrication shop and the woodshop in the Makerspace to improve the accessibility and functionality of the space given its limitations.
Why did you apply for this internship?
I really liked how the objectives and aims for this internship emphasized the importance of accessibility in both physical and digital spaces on campus, and I saw it as an opportunity to learn more about accessibility and inclusivity in designing and developing digital content, from writing simple documentation, to laying out the visual structure of a website.
What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect?
The first few weeks of the internship were focused on getting trained to use the tools and resources that might help us in approaching and organizing our projects. During the time period where we were getting trained on improving document accessibility, I learned how to remediate all kinds of documents using Microsoft tools and Adobe Acrobat so that they could be accessible to the people using screen readers. What surprised me about learning document remediation was how easy it was to incorporate different practices that improve document accessibility into my work outside of the internship, because now, I am familiar with different ways a document can be accessed apart from visual interpretation, and what steps I can take to ensure it fulfils accessibility guidelines.
What is most rewarding about your internship?
Seeing the culmination of our hard work in setting up a foundation for the projects that will continue to be developed by the College and the physical manifestation of how our skills have grown over the course of this internship has been the most rewarding part of this experience for me. In comparison to when I began this internship, I now have a better idea of what my strengths are in a work environment and what I can continue to improve —&²Ô²ú²õ±è; and gaining this perspective has also been very valuable!
Visit the Summer Internship Stories page to read more about student internship experiences.