Below you will find information about the National Security Agency and student program opportunities. The application for the Summer 2025 internship programs will be open until October 1st.  NSA offers multiple employment opportunities for students in college, recent graduates, and industry professionals! Please visit the following website to learn more: https://www.intelligencecareers.gov/nsa/index.html

As part of the US Intelligence Community, the National Security Agency (NSA) focuses on signals intelligence, which involves the interception of communication signals between people, machines, or both. NSA is the undisputed leader in this field. Our signals intelligence activities are never directed at American citizens. Cybersecurity is our other specialty, which is all about protecting American systems from prying eyes.

NSA’s professed mission is saving lives by preventing another 9/11.

Here are a few NSA opportunities for your students to consider:

• Summer Language Program Internship: Spend 12 weeks this summer working as a language analyst at NSA.  The summer 2025 program is hiring students with proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, Persian Farsi, and Arabic, but other languages are considered on a case-by-case basis.  The application is open September 1st through October 1st.  Note: There is only one job ad for all the summer internships. Applications also require one letter of recommendation, so don’t wait until October 1st to apply!
• Cooperative Education Program (Co-Op) for Language: Students in this program will alternate semesters between college and working at NSA as a language analyst.  Students can apply for the Co-Op Program starting their second semester Freshman year or during their Sophomore year.  Application period is open from September 1st to October 31st and from February 1st to March 31st. 
• NSA Codebreaker Challenge: The NSA Codebreaker Challenge provides students with a hands-on opportunity to develop their reverse-engineering / low-level code analysis skills while working on a realistic problem set centered around the NSA’s mission.  The challenge will open September 16th and run through January 17th, 2025.  
• Other permanent positons, like the Language Analysis Development Program (LADP) and the Intelligence Analysis Development Program (IADP) will be posted on an as needed basis on intelligencecareers.gov.

**Please note that all students must be U.S. citizens and able to obtain a Top Secret security clearance. Students are able to apply to any/all programs that interest them.

NSA will also be hosting two virtual Language Analysis Information Sessions that students and faculty are welcome to attend:

• Wednesday, September 18th 2:00pm – 3:30pm EST via Handshake: https://app.joinhandshake.com/events/1607095/share_preview
• Thursday, September 19th 7:30pm-9:00pm EST via MS Teams: https://events.gcc.teams.microsoft.com/event/559e4b76-60f8-42b8-9170-550f453dbc76@d61e9a6f-fc16-4f84-8a3e-6eeff33e136b

Stokes Scholarship for Chinese is for High School Seniors interested in pursuing Chinese in college and majoring in Chinese or a related degree should apply for the scholarship their senior year (September 1 – October 1).  This scholarship pays up to $30,000/year for tuition, plus a year-round salary.  The students will also work 12 weeks each summer at NSA as a Chinese Language Analyst.  After graduating, the student is required to work 1.5 times their length of study at NSA.  See the job posting here: https://apply.intelligencecareers.gov/job-description/1235693

In a clinic…

“Em…all right, your pulse is normal.”

“But, doctor, please check my left hand – the right is an artificial one.”

Liang, Yanmin. 幽默汉语 ( Humorous Chinese). 让烹诗玄 包出版社 (Beijing Language and Culture University Press), 2004

Friend of the Museum Tim Brookes has published a book of Sudoku puzzles using endangered alphabets. He has shared a sample with us for your puzzle-solving fun. The introduction to this book explains more.

Introduction

Why endangered alphabet sudoku?

In almost every corner of the world, there are communities with their own writing system — alphabets, pictographs, other forms of writing — that has been forced to the brink of extinction.

More than 90% of the world’s writing systems are in this critical situation. When a script falls into disuse, the entire written record of that culture — sacred texts, poems, personal correspondence, histories, the collective collected wisdom of that people — is lost. And with it goes much of their sense of history, identity, self-respect, and purpose.

It’s a cultural and spiritual catastrophe. Research all over the world shows that under these circumstances the extent and quality. of education, average birth weight and life expectancy go down, while levels of infant mortality, homelessness and incarceration, and even suicide go up.

Conversely, some communities have tried to gain a sense of linguistic pride and cultural identity by inventing their own writing systems, but those scripts struggle for acceptance in the face of those of more powerful neighbors.

The Endangered Alphabets Project is the only organization in the world promoting and supporting marginalized scripts. We do that by compiling the Atlas of Endangered Alphabets (endangeredalphabets.net), by raising awareness, by providing technical help, by promoting the artwork of typographers and calligraphers breathing new life into their culture’s letterforms — and by making games …

. . .like these sudoku, which open the player’s eyes to what it must be like to be out of our depth in a country that uses a different language or script. An endangered alphabet sudoku shows us all too vividly how hard it is to process unfamiliar written symbols. It’s hard enough to recognize and identify the symbols themselves one by one, but trying to scan the mass of glyphs to pick up likely combinations is extraordinarily difficult. We may feel baffled, overwhelmed, angry, foolish, resentful. This is the challenge many minorities, refugees and immigrants face every day.

Hint: in the face of this challenge, I tackle these puzzles by assigning each symbol a number from 1-9, solve the puzzle using symbols I know well, then convert them back to the endangered alphabet symbols. But you may not want to
take such short cuts!

Either way, have fun, fellow geeks!

Tim Brookes
Founder, the Endangered Alphabets Project
www.endangeredalphabets.com

Sudoku is a number puzzle where the goal is to fill in a 9×9 grid with numbers 1–9 so that each row, column, and 3×3 quadrant has exactly one of each number. 

In Tim’s version, instead of the numbers 1-9 you have nine different letters or characters from a particular minority script. But you’re still trying to do the same thing: make sure that each row, column, and 3×3 quadrant has exactly one of each symbol. For your convenience, the pdf below may be printed or print the sudoku grid here.

Balinese Alphabet Sudoku

Text and puzzle © Endangered Alphabets Sudoku by Tim Brookes – Percentage Possibility Publications $17.95 Available at https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/endangered-alphabetsmerchandise/

Judge: Why did you steal this car?

Thief: ‘Cause it’s parked beside the tomb. I thought its owner must have died.

Liang, Yanmin. 幽默汉语 ( Humorous Chinese). 让烹诗玄 包出版社 (Beijing Language and Culture University Press), 2004

The mother-in-law comes to visit and says to her son-in-law:

– “I have two pieces of news for you: one bad and one good!

– “Mom, I see that you’re alive and well, what’s the good news?”

Приходить теща в гості і каже зятю:

– У мене для тебе дві новини: одна погана, а інша хороша!

– Мамо, я бачу, що ви живі і здорові, а яка гарна новина?

Joke and translation courtesy of Viktoria Davydovska

Policeman: Why did you keep the ring you found instead of reporting it to the police?

The suspect: ‘Cause it is carved clearly, “I’ll always belong to you.”

Liang, Yanmin. 幽默汉语 ( Humorous Chinese). 让烹诗玄 包出版社 (Beijing Language and Culture University Press), 2004

In the past, the future was better.

En el pasado, el futuro era major.

Droznes, Lazaro. Humor Breve(Brief Humor). Unitexto Digital Publishing, 2023.

Grandchildren are the reward that life gives us for having raised our children.

Los nietos son la recompensa que nos da la vida por haber criado a nuestros hijos.

Droznes, Lazaro. Humor Breve (Brief Humor). Unitexto Digital Publishing, 2023.

Exercising is a laborious way to die healthy.

Hacer gimnasia es un modo trabajoso de morirse sano.

Droznes, Lazaro. Humor Breve(Brief Humor). Unitexto Digital Publishing, 2023.

Rockville Science Day 2024

Play the quiz show games on origins of scientific terms in 12 categories. Game 1 | Game 2

Posters: These posters explain Linneaus’ system of taxonomy. Click an image to enlarge.

Puzzles: click on the document to print and make your own puzzles with binomial nomenclature (scientific names) of various animals. Art by Linda Mitchell Thompson