From Reluctant Student to Engineer: The Journey of a FWISD Student Who Landed a Major Internship

by Jacob Sanchez, Fort Worth Report
July 13, 2024

David Campos spent two weeks thinking out his plan. His team needed to build a chair. Sounded simple enough. The materials? Cardboard. No tape. No glue. No wood. Just cardboard. And the chair had to support the weight of a full-grown adult.

The task was part of an engineering class Campos took while attending Fort Worth ISD’s Young Men’s Leadership Academy, an all-boys school offering sixth through 12th grades. The fun assignment was just a hint at the future for Campos, who graduated in May.

The process of tinkering with the design was fun for Campos. He figured out what worked and what didn’t.

“I like the experimentation and then the design process. That’s like competent engineering,” Campos said.

Campos would not have found a love for engineering if he had not enrolled in Young Men’s Leadership Academy, he says.

His mom wanted a school that kept Campos away from distractions. More importantly, she wanted good programs and plenty of choices for his future.

Campos, though, was not as eager.

“I don’t want to go to an all-boys school. That sounds boring,” Campos told his mom.

His first year at the school was far from ideal. In hindsight, Campos acknowledged it was a transition year as he learned to navigate a new campus and forge new friendships.

As he shook off the newness of his sixth-grade year, he became more comfortable and found a new interest: STEM.

The academy offered a business class track focused on science, technology, engineering, and math that Campos found interactive and fun.

When it was time to enter high school, Campos’ STEM program class kept him at Young Men’s Leadership Academy.

“It was really the only thing I cared about,” Campos said.

‘Prep Me for the Future’

His mother had another reason for keeping her son at Young Men’s Leadership Academy. She knew he had an opportunity to land an internship at one of Fort Worth’s biggest companies, Lockheed Martin.

“If my son could get this internship, he’d be set for life,” she thought.

“That’s been my mom’s mentality for like her whole life. No matter how young I am, she’s always trying to prep me for the future,” Campos said.

Campos applied for an internship at Lockheed — and landed it. He worked in the engineering technology department during his senior year.

“The assignments were definitely tedious,” Campos said.

He organized files on projects and proposals. As the internship went on, Campos started processing codes from modules on Lockheed’s planes. He learned the nitty-gritty of how the technology works.

He even determined why some signals weren’t sent to a plane, and helped design a program to help the jet’s computer — or brain, as Campos described it — understand what engineers wanted it to do. The program was his final assignment. Soon, Lockheed approved it and installed it in new planes.

“Basically, I saved America,” Campos said, jokingly.

Career Readiness

Students like Campos bolster Fort Worth ISD’s career readiness program.

A June school board presentation projected the district increasing the percentage of students who are considered ready for a career, college, or military.

Nearly 82% of graduates during the 2022-23 school year and 86% in the 2023-24 academic year are projected to be career-ready, according to district data. In 2021-22, the district had 54%.

“This is an area of pride for the school district. We grew significantly in our students graduating career-college-military ready,” Superintendent Angélica Ramsey told trustees.

‘I Do Have Time to Think’

Campos wrapped up his internship in May. He plans to go back and work for Lockheed in the future.

He’s still figuring out his journey back. Now 18 years old, he plans to attend a trade school and earn a welding certification and other credentials. He could work along the assembly line, an area in