MANALAPAN, NJ — Riya Pawar, a sophomore at Manalapan High School, spent much of her summer working a nine-to-five. The code she wrote during that time now protects thousands of software users at Commvault, a Nasdaq-listed data protection and management software company where she interned.
During the six-week internship program, Pawar joined a group of 20 high school students and wrote ransomware code that would protect important Commvault data.
“It was interesting to see how things that I learned in school in the Science and Engineering Magnet program could be applied in this sense of the real world and were actually used in his products. business,” the 15-year-old said. said Patch.
Not all students doing the internship had the same opportunity to integrate their work into real products.
“It was based on how well you were able to run the code and how important it was to Commvault’s data protection,” she explained.
Pawar is part of Manalapan High School’s Science and Engineering Magnet Program, a four-year program of interdisciplinary study for students interested in pursuing careers in math, engineering, or physical science.
She was one of the youngest students selected for the Commvault internship and was the only girl accepted into the high school’s engineering and math program.
The teenager’s parents were understandably delighted with her accomplishments.
“First of all, even getting into the Magnet science and engineering program. Riya is among the 26 children selected and is the only girl in this program,” said her father, Rahul Pawar. “And then after being selected for an internship early on and being able to write code into the commercial product, those are all great things for us, we were happy about that.”
Pawar also plays the piano – with his 10-year-old brother – and recently competed in the Miss India Teen New Jersey pageant, in July 2021, winning the crown.
“I wanted to challenge myself, put myself out there and do something that I didn’t really know,” she said. “Preparing for this competition helps me learn skills and I can still use them in my daily interactions.”
Pawar hopes to work in a field like IT in the future.
“There’s not just one major goal for me to achieve,” she said. “It starts with several small goals and then hopefully I can do something where I’m successful and stable in my life.”
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