Soon to be a junior at CSU, Northridge, Matthew T Salvador started out at Los Angeles Pierce College studying Computer Engineering. Through Network Kinection's partnership with Pierce College in placing students with career-related opportunities, Matthew was placed with Avenda Health as a Data Science intern.
In his own words, Matthew shares his internship experience at Avenda Health and how his time there has helped him advance in his career field.
Hello! My name is Matthew Salvador, I'm 18 years old and I am currently transferring to Cal. State Northridge as a Junior in Computer Engineering from Pierce College (where I also was able to work towards an AA in Mathematics). My internship was through a program called Biofutures, which connects students to internships in various life sciences companies. My specific internship was a 10-week paid internship (with full time hours) at a company called Avenda Health, with my role being a Data Science Intern.
The main bulk of my work at the internship was labeling MRI Images of the prostate region slice by slice to identify crucial structures of the prostate (AFS, Peripheral Zone, Central Gland) and the pathway of the Urethra through the Prostate. The labeling process of MRI/medical images is known as "segmentation", and the images were being used in order to train an AI to identify these various regions to help plan the surgery process. I also was able to work on some programming projects using the Pycharm IDE and the SimpleITK framework in order to convert various segmentation files/medical images into our standard format (RAW/.mhd), and to extract various labels from a given segmentation file. I think the main struggle was just trying to be consistent in my work and getting used to working full time, and also having to get used to the software they used and learning how to do my job.
I would say to other LAPC students looking to get internships, is to definitely try to improve or build a good resume so recruiters can see your strengths and abilities, and also just try to keep applying and be responsive when it comes to emails and opportunities. I would say this internship was definitely valuable to my future career, and very helpful in general to give me the experience of being able to work full time.
