Schenectady, New York. John Senisi admits he was leery when he got an unexpected phone call four years ago from Betty Jarvis at Mohonasen High School in Rotterdam, New York.

Jarvis, dean of career development, asked Senisi whether he'd be willing to accept interns at his small but growing company, Synthesis Architects.

Training interns, as any employer knows, can be a gamble that winds up costing more in time and resources than it is worth.

But, Senisi and his partner, Michael Szemansco, convinced themselves to team up with Mohonasen's Career Exploration Internship Program (CEIP).

The partnership has paid off. Today, five Mohonasen graduates, three of them former CEIP interns, have full- or part-time jobs at Synthesis, and more interns keep walking through the door.

Mohonasen graduates Michael Roman, Samuele Campagnano, Michael Goard and Ronald Batcher, Jr., left to right, pose with projects and designs they have worked on either as interns or employees at Synthesis Architects, Jay Street, Schenectady.

"I was insistent on getting top-quality kids, and she [Jarvis] was really good at that," said Senisi, who started the firm 10 years ago with Szemansco.

Besides careful screening of all the intern applicants, CEIP is not available to every student. The success of the partnership is also due to the computer-aided design training offered at Mohonasen, Senisi said.

The classes teach students how to use computers to create three-dimensional drawings using a Computer-Aided Design program. Although some architects still do drawings by hand, all the designing at Synthesis is done by computer.

Senisi stresses attention to detail, and lets interns get involved in conceptual meetings and drawings from day one.

Senisi considers his young recruits a farm team of sorts, and their enthusiasm is evident. They fit in well with the modern, sleek feel of the office which is above the Earthly Delights Natural Foods store downtown on the Jay Street pedestrian mall.

They've all been whipped into shape," Senisi said. "If you give us a print that's crooked, do it again."

Seeing what goes on behind the scenes at an architectural firm was a boon to former interns Ronald Batcher, Jr., 18, Samuele Campagnano, 19, and Michael Roman, 21.

All had an interest in architecture, but didn't fully understand the stresses and rewards of the profession until they started interning.

"At Buffalo, a lot of kids didn't have the experience," said Campagnano, who attended the University at Buffalo last year and is now enrolled in architecture courses at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy.

"I wish I had it," said Michael Goard, 24, a 1992 Mohonasen graduate who also took CAD classes but didn't intern at Synthesis. Still, he ended up getting a full-time job at the firm in 1997.

The Mohonasen crew has left its imprint on a number of designs, among them plans for a downtown convention center, the amphitheater in Schenectady's Central Park and a luxury home being built on the shores of Lake George.

They work under the leadership of a project manager and contribute to the overall design, such as fine-tuning interior elevations and suggesting materials and patterns for walls and floors.

Another Mohonasen graduate, Franklin Rapp III, works part time at Synthesis in between classes at HVCC, and two high school were there in the fall. Two interns will be at Synthesis in the spring.

Not all Mohonasen interns end up working there, and CEIP has placed students in many other fields since it was launched in 1992 as one of eight pilot program state.

Students must intern at least 108 hours at a business to earn credit. At Synthesis, some put in enough hours to also get paid while in high school.

Senisi knows first-hand the benefit of having a mentor. He graduated from college with an English degree, and got interested in architecture after building a solar-power home with a friend. He went back to school and and eventually got his license.

"On a business level we get workers that can help us out with odds and ends," Senisi said. "But we also like to train them to be creative and practical."