At East Boston High School, Cindy Alfaro Martinez played three sports, served on the executive board of her school’s National Honor Society chapter, and was her class salutatorian, all in addition to waitressing at a local restaurant. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Students

Meet BU’s Newest Terriers: Cindy Alfaro Martinez

Public relations major and Menino Scholar was the first-ever high school intern for CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals

This week, 3,147 freshmen and 931 transfer students will begin their careers at Boston University. It’s time to meet a few of them.

This summer, Cindy Alfaro Martinez was one of 7,000 Boston-area high school students who benefited from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s Summer Jobs Program, designed to connect local area high school students with employers and help boost their résumés.

Jobs typically range from parks cleanup to office work, but Alfaro Martinez (COM’27) ended up with a pretty impressive gig: the first-ever high school intern for the CEO and president of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Reshma Kewalramani (MED’98, CAS’98). Alfaro Martinez split her time between the Boston-based pharmaceutical CEO’s office and its community affairs office and says the six-week, 30-hour-a-week internship was a stellar opportunity to dabble in many different areas of a major company, a rare opportunity for someone her age. 

“It was obviously a little intimidating for me because I didn’t think at first that I had the confidence, but I knew that deep down I had the ability, so I went out of my comfort zone,” Alfaro Martinez says. “But I did the work and I think I impressed her.”

The first-gen college student has earned a reputation for her work ethic. As a student at East Boston High School, Alfaro Martinez played three sports, served on the executive board of her school’s National Honor Society chapter, and was her class salutatorian, all in addition to her waitressing job at a local restaurant. She says her parents, while proud, didn’t truly grasp what a big deal it was when schools, among them BU, Boston College, and Northeastern, accepted her. But they were thrilled when their daughter was selected as a Menino Scholar, an award that gives full-tuition merit scholarships to Boston Public Schools students attending BU, based on their academic record.

Alfaro Martinez learned about the Vertex position thanks to her school’s partnership with the Boston Private Industry Council (PIC), a workforce development organization. Advisors work with Boston public high school students to help them find internships and jobs. One of the advisors suggested she apply to Vertex as part of the Mayor’s Summer Jobs initiative.

At first, Alfaro Martinez thought she might not be a good fit for Vertex, given that it is a pharmaceutical company and she has no plans to go into a STEM field (she is setting her sights on public relations, she says). But her PIC advisor told her that Vertex had positions in its legal, finance, and communications departments, so Alfaro Martinez decided to apply—and was selected.

Mornings during the 30-hour-a-week internship were spent in Vertex’s Learning Lab, which allows students the chance to try their own scientific experiments and helped them learn more about the cutting-edge research happening at Vertex on diseases such as cystic fibrosis. In the afternoons, the interns split up to work in their respective departments and went on group field trips.

Alfaro Martinez helped coordinate Vertex’s partnerships with organizations like Year Up, a national nonprofit that empowers low-income young adults to find a career in a year with the help of a free intensive training program. She says this work with Year Up was especially meaningful to her since she is a first-gen student and realizes that many others don’t have the same opportunities she’s been afforded. She also helped post stories and photo updates to Vertex’s internal employee website.

Her capstone project involved researching how to build a greenhouse on the terrace outside the Vertex cafeteria, an idea she and Kewalramani came up with together after discussing a field trip the Vertex interns took to Wellesley College’s botanical and edible garden. Alfaro Martinez says that among the benefits of a greenhouse would be fresh produce for employees as well as an opportunity to donate the surplus to local food pantries. More research needs to be done on permitting and the impact Boston’s infamous winters would have.

Martinez says Kewalramani gave her the confidence to believe that one day she too could head up her own business, and that she might want to open her own real estate company some day. “It was so important to have that motivation of seeing someone that potentially looks like me,” she says, “because it showed me that I can do it as well.”

Kewalramani says she was impressed by Alfaro Martinez. “It was a delight to work with Cindy and to see her gain confidence and grow throughout the summer,” she says. “She brings new ideas and enthusiasm to every conversation: two of the most valued things we look for in our Vertexians. In my—highly biased—opinion as a former BU student, I know Cindy has chosen a great place to start building her career.” 

Now settled on campus, Alfaro Martinez is excited to start her college career. She plans to join Alianza Latina, BU’s largest Latinx student organization, the BU Real Estate Club, and BU’s intramural volleyball club (she was captain of her high school team). She says she also wants to create a platform that’s relatable and fun to watch, maybe on TikTok, where first-gen students can find resources and content. 

And she’s already working to encourage other high schoolers to apply to BU. Throughout the summer, after finishing her daily Vertex internship, Alfaro Martinez would take the MBTA Blue Line back to her home in East Boston and help out with her high school’s volleyball camp. She did it, she says, partially because she loves the sport, but also because she enjoys helping younger students. They’d ask how she got into BU and tips for starting their college search.

“I liked being a role model they could come to,” she says.