 Each summer, undergraduates from all over the U.S., including Puerto Rico, descend upon the NEON Project headquarters in Boulder, Colorado to gain valuable skills and experience to further their STEM career goals. These aspiring professionals complete projects in a variety of fields including ecology, atmospheric science, engineering, remote sensing, mapping, and ecoinformatics. NEON interns spend 11 weeks developing skills in three main areas, technical training and experience, leadership and workplace preparation, and scientific communication. Each intern selects and completes a unique researcher design project. Interns work closely with NEON mentors to share their progress and direction. These projects provide technical training and real-world experience on a wide variety of topics. Opportunities to go out in the field and visit NEON sampling sites also give interns an up-close look at how NEON project teams collect data. By pairing up with mentors who are experts in their fields, NEON interns gain fundamental skills including project design, independent research strategies, and developing ideas collaboratively. Leadership training, weekly intern lunches, and social events also provide opportunities for networking and exploration of topics relevant to each intern's area of focus. NEON interns partner with interns from UCAR and UNAVCO in weekly scientific communication and writing workshops. By summer's end, interns present their work at poster sessions to gain valuable insight and feedback from a wide variety of scientists and engineers. The NEON internship program has nurtured and developed the next generation of STEM professionals since 2013 by providing the skills, tools, and experience necessary to advance their scientific and engineering endeavors. NEON encourages undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds interested in STEM to apply to the NEON internship program. Projects are announced each November and the application deadline is in early February.