MBA student IBM internship in Metro News

"IBM's Interns Mean Business," by Kenneth Jackson, Metro Ottawa

While most students her age are working the usual summer jobs like digging ditches and waiting tables, Denise Pereira is part of a software development team for IBM in Ottawa.

Pereira, 26, an MBA student at McGill University, was one of 24 post-secondary students selected to be part of the Extreme Blue program, IBM's premiere internship program that consists of three teams of four students in Ottawa and the same in Toronto. Pereira is focused on the application of business strategies in the lab.

"It's gone beyond what I expected from a career standpoint. It's a challenge and I'm really enjoying it," said Pereira.

The objective for Pereira is to create a technical solution that meets a real business need with three other student technicians during the 15-week program, which they are halfway through.

At the end of the program, teams will be flown to New York to present their work to a group of worldwide IBM executives, according to project manager Jacky Turner.

She said the students are the "cream of the crop" recruited by IBM from Canadian universities and many will land permanent jobs with IBM.

The internship program started in 1999 as a summer internship in Cambridge, Mass., with only 25 students, which has grown to more than 200 interns.