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Lawrence Livermore information technology job shadow day a hit

Tuesday was no ordinary school day for 60 students and teachers, who visited the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to take their education outside of the classroom and learn all about the Lab and information technology (IT).

The event was hosted by The Office of the Chief Information Officer and Livermore Information Technology as part of the Department of Energy's IT Job Shadow Day. This was the second time LLNL participated in the event to enlighten local high school students about summer internships as well as careers in information technology (IT) at LLNL and other DOE facilities, once they are in college or when they complete their degrees.

The students were selected by high school faculty from eight local high schools in Livermore, Pleasanton, San Ramon and Tracy.

The day included tours of the High Performance Computing Facility and the Centralized IT Support Centers. The students also participated in exciting interactive activities involving Cyber Security and IT Operations, which included a friendly competition to see which team could reassemble a computer the fastest, a game of Jeopardy and a computer controlled hovercraft demonstration. They ended the day with Bruce Goodwin, associate director at large for National Security Policy & Research, and a discussion on how IT enables the missions of the Laboratory.

Volunteers and students were energized about the event and enthusiastically tweeted about the activities throughout the day @sh4dowd4y. 

Mitchell Lambert, a student from Foothill High School in Pleasanton, was impressed with the tour of the High Performance Computing Center. "This experience gave me a different perspective of what IT professionals actually do," Lambert said.

To sum up the event, another student commented "this was the best field trip ever!"