Bank of America
Summer 2026I'm a 2026 Bank of America Student Leader, one of 250 incoming sophomores nationwide selected for the program. Each of us is partnered with a nonprofit in our community. I was placed with the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank and Greater East Valley, where I've spent the summer working on community impact, youth development, and leadership in real-world settings.
In June, the full cohort came together in Charlotte, North Carolina for the Student Leaders Summit. We heard directly from senior Bank of America leaders, including Hari Gopalkrishnan, the bank's Chief Technology and Information Officer, AJ Barkley, Head of Global Community Opportunity, and Kieth Cockrell, President of Bank of America Charlotte. Getting that level of access, and meeting student leaders from across the country, gave me a much bigger picture of how this internship connects to the bank's broader community investment work. It's early in my career, and I'm genuinely grateful for the opportunity to be part of something at this scale.
What I'm working on
Through the Student Leaders program, I help oversee operations and programming at the Boys & Girls Club, from streamlining intake and scheduling to managing budget proposals and expense tracking for the summer program. I also built a workshop series for high schoolers on financial aid, college terminology, and career pathways.
It's taught me how corporate partnership, nonprofit operations, and program planning actually work together, and what it takes to build something that outlasts a single summer.
Why it matters
Bank of America's Student Leaders program isn't just an internship title. It's a chance to practice leadership where it counts, in rooms with real students, real families, and real community needs.
It's changed how I think about engineering too. Most of what makes something work isn't the visible part, it's the operations behind it.