When Hewlett Packard Labs leaders select undergraduate interns, the students who apply bring a range of experiences and credentials. The students tend to be strong academically, but many are brand new to the working world and to a global organization like HPE.
Thatโs not the case for undergraduates participating in an international program called โDualStudy by HPE.โ These candidates not only are familiar with global enterprise โ they know their way around HPE. The three-year program these students from Germanyโs Baden-Wรผrttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) attend is run in partnership with HPE. The students participate in six different semester-long internships, within various departments at HPE.
โThe DualStudy program is great because itโs a known quantity,โ said Harumi Kuno, a Labs principal research scientist who has worked directly with interns from the program in a number of HPE research labs in the past nine years. โThe young people who are in the program are just so experienced and professional. By the time they reach us, theyโve usually done a number of internships throughout the company. This means they are totally familiar with HPE and with all of our processes and our internal tools. The DualStudy program sets them up for success on their own career paths and brings a lot of value to us, as well.โ
A long connection with HPE
The DualStudy program at HPE dates back to 1965 โ just a quarter century after Bill Hewlett and David Packard started their company in their Silicon Valley garage. Over the past six decades more than 4,000 students have completed the program, holding down internships in HPE departments in Germany, the United States, Singapore and other locations throughout the world.
While many U.S. universities offer cooperative training programs for undergraduates, the practice is particularly popular in Germanyโs tech sector. Stuttgart-based DHBW specializes in dual study education. Many global organizations, including HPE, have set up dedicated programs within the university.
The DualStudy by HPE program currently has 130 undergraduate students enrolled in three-year programs that are divided into 12 three-month segments. Six of the segments are spent at school in Germany with the option of spending one semester abroad. In the other six the students work in an HPE office. In their second year theyโre free to pursue an international assignment.
โWe encourage them to try to get different experiences โ whatever fits best for them,โ said Susanne Reuchlen, a program manager with DualStudy by HPE in Germany. โWe have various internship projects in different areas and different departments within HPE looking for talented individuals. We tell them to feel free to try everything.โ
DualStudy by HPE has three areas of focus.
- In Computer Science, students work on technical projects like prototyping and rearchitecting business logic to microservices and reengineering update frameworks.
- Business Information Systems includes a blend of data science, international management, sales and consulting. Students in this area explore projects like analyzing and improving distribution models and detecting anomalies in service and application data.
- Business Economics appeals to students interested in HR, finance, sales and project management. In recent years, students have worked on business case designs for GreenLake services and market analyses for key accounts.
โWith our internship program, we try to cover every area within HPE to get qualified people for every role we offer within HPE," said Martina Forstner, another DualStudy program manager in Germany.
Making an Impact at Labs
Hewlett Packard Labs has been an active participant in the DualStudy by HPE program. Labs hosted five Dual Study student interns this past summer. In recent years these students and their predecessors have been working on projects focusing on everything from computer architecture to Kubernetes to distributed AI to edge technologies. One group created a new way to autotune technologies to smooth over technical issues with enterprise software tools. Another intern hosted by Puneet Sharma in his Networking and Distributed Systems Lab (NDSL) partnered on a data analytics project to help animal trackers identify tracks and share information in the field.
Diman Zad Tootaghaj and Lianjie Cao, both senior researchers in NDSL, have mentored several dual study interns. โThese are very smart students who are very quick to learn,โ Tootaghaj said. โThatโs something Iโve always been impressed by.โ
Hewlett Packard Labsโ Systems Architecture Lab also has maintained a steady flow of bringing in 3-5 DualStudy students per year since 2015. Kuno, the principal research scientist, said having an intern focus on a specific project helps the intern gain practical skills and gives researchers dedicated support for their work.
โInterns are a kind of life blood,โ she said. โHaving an intern focus on one project for three months โ that helps the researchers. The student can spend more dedicated time than the researcher possibly could. It just doubles the rewards. They bring a different perspective. Itโs good to have another person to bounce ideas off.โ
The Systems Architecture Lab and Networking & Distributed Systems Lab have provided DualStudy interns hands on research experience on a number of ambitious projects in recent years. One student is currently building a prototype of a high-performance computing as a service application platform, using Pachyderm, Kubernetes and Arkouda. Another student modified a programming language called MPI so it could use fabric attached memory to allow processes to exchange results. Last year a couple of students built a tool to do semantic searches of 21 years of abstracts submitted to HPEโs TechCon conference.
โI deeply appreciate the DualStudy program,โ Kuno said. โItโs a fantastic resource. For the sake of our kids, I wish we had something like that in the U.S. For the sake of the company too.โ
Sharma and Kuno both said the programโs blend of academic rigor, international experiences and exposure to different departments within HPE prepares students well for success in the technology field.
โYou can see a big difference between DualStudy students and their peers,โ Cao said. โThere is really nothing comparable in my mind.โ
If you are interested in a DualStudy by HPE internship, please contact dualstudy@hpe.com.
