Month: May 2016

Evie Day 4- CAM Photoshoots > Parking Tickets

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When I first heard I was interning for a marketing company I had absolutely zero expectation of having some of the opportunities I’ve had so far. Sure I assumed I would get to see some fascinating projects or meet many talented individuals, however I never assumed I’d get to have a day like today. For the first half of this lovely and shockingly hot thursday, I spent my time listening to a company presentation and then sat down with one of the graphic designers named Sarah. I saw much of her work and sat in on a meeting that she had with some of the other members of the creative team, the project managers, and the creative director. She was working on a website page for a company that I can’t disclose, however it was really interesting to see the details that go behind creating a website. We discussed the various requirements certain brands demand, such as specific color palettes and prints to include and also looked at what a typical finished project would look like. Following that I got to sit in on a pretty important meeting with Sam and some of the marketing individuals for a pitch they were giving their client. I really got to see first hand the process of pitching varies ideas, receiving client input, and then coming to a compromise and a clear consensus. The meeting went perfectly for the team, as their ideas seemed to have gone down extremely well with the client. The creativity involved in the marketing process was really wonderful and out of all the experiences so far I’d say it made me feel the most in my element. As I was listening I loved just thinking of my own solutions to the problems the clients proposed, and really seeing what sort of concepts I could come up with. The sheer amount of creativity, especially when transforming quite a flat product into something exciting and entertaining, was impressive to say the least. After the success of the meeting I headed over to CAM to visit a shoot for a video Centerline was making for one of their clients. Getting over the beauty of CAM and the building itself was one thing, but watching a shoot in the place was just a whole other experience. I got to see up close the tedious precision that goes into video shooting and some of the vast equipment used. For anyone who knows me well they know that there’s nothing I love more than a photo or a video shoot ( other than Beyonce, asian food and harry styles), so today was definitely a special one. It was so worth the $40 parking ticket!!

Evie

Building!

Today I was able to start using my hand more! We started off the day by reviewing many of the manuals and then we started building! The only problem was some of the manuals were not incredibly helpful so we had to be true engineers and try to problem solve. Eventually we were actually able to extend the legs of the tripod and from there everything went a lot more smoothly. We were able to get all of the sensors working and we even took 2 hours worth of data just to make sure all of the sensors and our program worked. One thing down many more to go…

Iain

FREE BOOKS and Other Adventures at UNC Press

Today I’ve been at UNC Press, learning what exactly goes into publishing works of academia and scholarly writing.

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Academia is very different from what goes on at Algonquin or other fiction presses: UNC Press publishes about 100 books a year, as opposed to Algonquin’s 20. It also spends less time on what they call “developmental editing”, which is where an author and an editor have a dialogue over what will go into the book. It’s much more a process of receiving the manuscript, approving it, copy editing, and then typesetting rather than the back-and-forth which happens with fiction.

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UNC Press is also undergoing renovations next week, which means that they have a lot of free books they’re trying to get rid of!!! I’m taking home quite a pile of academic summer reading. 🙂

Cameron Day 4 – “I love the smell of black carbon in the morning!”

– said no one ever.

Hello friends!

As you may have guessed (or not) from the title, today was mainly focused on testing the EMCs. We started after a quick job receiving and shipping a few items in Bay 3 (or section 3) of the building, and then returned to our normal station in bay 4 to meet with mr. J. Lynn Davis and Andrew Dart to discuss what they do at RTI. I also got to meet up with Emily and her guide, Phillip Durham, who seemed to be a pretty cool dude.

After lunch, we started working with the EMCs again. As the main person testing the filters (with my guide providing aid if needed), I got to light the kerosene lamp needed to produce the black carbon smoke, which was fun. The not so fun part ended up being blowing out the flame, because you get a big whiff of black carbon too. Do you know what that smells like? Imagine eating a box of chalk. It’s roughly the same feeling.

Being the main on that also means you get a lot of black carbon on you as well. Say goodbye to clean hands, folks. That’s a pipe dream.

Anyways, we got through a ton of tests today, and (despite screwing up several tests), we’re almost done with the work. I’ve think I may have gotten the nickname butterfingers at one point… Anyway, we expect to finish tomorrow, so wish us luck, please!

So, without further ado, Butterfingers signing off!

Day 4: Driving on the wrong side!

Today is our last day at SAS, and Khushi and I end our day with bittersweet emotions. We’re both really going to miss our new friends we’ve met along the way, but we had such a fun day! We started the day with a talk about SSOD, SAS Solutions on Demand, with Milinda, while we consumed donuts for Chris’s (another employee in GR&A) birthday. Afterwards, we got to listen to a weekly audio call with the financial directors from all over the world in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Asia), hearing the top financial correspondents from Belgium, Czech Republic, UK, and Sweden as well as David, the vice president and Chief Accounting Officer at SAS discuss their weekly agenda. Afterwards we walked a 5k, complete with food trucks and Zumba for Employee Fitness Month, and finished the day by talking about legal reporting. We both loved our experience here, and would love to be back!

-Grace

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The delicious donuts. Happy Birthday, Chris!

goodnight

 

The view of Dr. Goodnight’s house from the walk.

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The financial directors we listened to during the conference call. Previously a director had told Lisa to put a particular issue in the ‘parking lot’, and today asked if he could drive out the ‘car’. Lisa replied with a witty, “No, because you drive on the wrong side of the road!”

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The finish line of the 5k!

Day 4: Shake It Up- SAS Style

We started the last day of SAS off with donuts from Rise in honor of Chris’s birthday! After a yummy chocolate frosted donut, Grace and I had our first meeting of the day with Millinda, who explained the support system SAS has for its customers as well as the finance behind it. Then, we listened in on the weekly voice call Lisa has with the finance directors from EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Asia!). In only an hour, they were able to complete their 30-point agenda, and we got to hear from Sweden, Czech Republic, UK, and Belgium! After that, the fun began! It’s Employee Health and Fitness Month here at SAS, which means we got to participate in a 5k walk/run, and then eat yummy food from the food trucks at the finish line. In addition to food trucks, there were also Zumba classes happening and lots of other fun activities, like Ultimate Frisbee! Grace and I, along with Courtney and Adanna, ate fro-yo on the lawn as we watched other employees jamming out to Sia, Meghan Trainor, and more. After the fun afternoon, we grabbed a quick lunch at Building T. Finally, to wrap up the day, Grace and I met with Lisa, who discussed Legal and GAAP Reporting. Overall, we had a great week here at SAS, and learned so much about the various careers within the umbrella of “finance”. Hopefully, we’ll be back here in the future!

-Khushi

IMG_3296The signs pointing towards the awesome things to look forward to at the finish line of the 5k walk/run!

IMG_3302Grace and I about halfway through our walk!

IMG_3303After walking in the blazing heat, we finally made it to the finish line!

So I Might get Published


I’m here at the INDY Newsweek HQ and it’s been an incredibly informative day so far.

The day started with a sort of inadvertent crash course on the basics of a newspaper or any sort of news organization, and evolved into a discussion about the basics of journalism as a field. Jeff Billman asked and answered questions with detailed stories and examples, especially about the nature of procuring and editing a story.

The conversation spiraled away and somehow he ended up reading an article of mine I had written a few months earlier about the infamous Shower Club at CA, and he even asked me to write about 3000 words on it by mid June for potential publication, so I’m really excited to work on that!

Now I’m just shadowing an editor’s meeting in which they discuss funding, covers, art and logistics for the publication of the next issue of INDY.

-Rosie

Reaghan day 3 

Today was relatively laid back with not as many meetings to attend. Most of our day consisted of editing & uploading the video from Courtney’s social selling class, which has to go through an approval process before being sent out to all of SAS’s social selling department.  There were a few meetings after lunch with Courtney’s co-workers, but it was really interesting to hear how the team is putting the program together. Social selling is a fairly new department for SAS, so it’s a building process. SAS locations all around the world have social selling reps, and one of Courtney’s responsibilities is to travel to these other locations. She uploads really cool pictures of her travels to the Facebook page linked, it’s definitely worth checking out! 

Day 3: Check 1, 2, 3

Waking up today was glorious, because we had an extra two hours of sleep which begun the day strong. Nothing was scheduled until around 9 o’clock, so the doctors didn’t need us at the hospital until then.

When we arrived a doctor named Leah told us that we could try hearing tests on each other and experience what patients experience at the hospital. I had never gotten my hearing checked before so it was all very new to me. We entered a soundproof room and begun checking each others ears like we’d seen Dr. McElveen do several times. Once everything was set, we begun the testing. Kiran left the room and I put on a set of over-ear headphones. He began emitting a sound at 1,000 hz, and tested to see when the lowest db I could hear it at. After 10-20 minutes of various frequencies we switched and I began testing him. The machine to test was complicated and it took a while to get used to it. I managed to successfully test his hearing and we both recorded the results. Shockingly, his hearing was perfect and mine was only slightly under perfect, so you can image what the rest of the day was like for me. It was fairly unclear who had better hearing after our first test, but we both scored in the normal hearing range. The second test was simply saying words through the microphone and the patient had to repeat the words back to the doctor.

Day 3b

If a patient scored in the profound hearing range, then they are candidates for cochlear implants which will grant you the ability to hear again, but at a cost. The reason that only certain patients are candidates for cochlear implants is because surgically implanting them will ultimately wipe out the rest of your hearing. Any time you don’t have the assisting aid on your ear you’re practically deaf, but on the brighter side as long as you have the implant your hearing will sky rocket. How the implant works, is the surgeon cuts near the patient’s temporal bone and inserts a small mechanism right near the ear. Two long strands connected to the device are implanted in the cochlea and a small magnet is implanted behind the ear. A device on the outside also contains a magnet, and is positioned so that the magnets connect through the skin. This device then sends twenty-two electrodes into the cochlea, which contains thousands of damaged electrodes, and grants the patient a limited amount of sounds their ear can process.

Day 3a

After the hearing test it was around noon which is our lunch break, but everyone seemed to be out that day so Kiran and I ate alone in the lunch room.

After lunch Kiran and I split up again and I sat with Kate in her office and she explained so much to me about diseases and cochlear implants. She showed me diagrams and hearing aids and gave me papers. We had a great conversation, which ended up lasting around two hours: the fastest two hours of my life. By that time it was around 3 or 3:30, so I headed back to my room and continued my work and read some of the papers Kate gave me. By the time I was done Kiran had come out of the room with Nicolle and we headed back home.

All in all it was a day of learning and growth.

Day 2: The Surge of Surgery

Today picked up tempo quickly and suddenly. We began by meeting Dr. McElveen at Duke Hopsital, and had difficulty finding the entrance to the Same-Day Surgery building. We arrived 10 minutes early, so he hadn’t arrived yet and we were instructed to ask another nurse in the back about his whereabouts. Each nurse directed us further and further in the building and eventually we were in the middle of the building, surrounded by surgeries and doctors. Dr. McElveen laughed when he found us and led us through the labyrinth and towards the changing station. We put on scrubs and were thrown into a room where Dr. McElveen began surgery on a patient who suffered from damage towards the ear drum. I couldn’t quite tell whether or not it was cochlear implant surgery, but whatever it was was fascinating to me and Kiran. Ear surgery is far too cramped for me, it gives absolutely no room for error or else the patient could go deaf. All surgery is precise and requires steady hands, but there is nothing in accord with watching ear surgery. Dr. McElveen does the entire procedure under a microscope, which Kiran and I tried afterwards on a temporal bone. Carolina Ear & Hearing Clinic has one of the two temporal bone labs in the country, and Kiran and I were given the chance to mimic Dr. McElveen’s surgery procedure. We were given microscopes and tools to understand how difficult it is to do surgery under a microscope with such limited movement.Scrubs.jpg

Afterwards Dr. McElveen had to go to South Carolina so Kiran and I were sent back to the hospital to resume our experience. We were assigned a paper on Stapedectomy’s and Otosclerosis, and we learned what the procedure is for dealing with it. Otosclerosis is the buildup of bone tissue in the outer ear around the stapes. This prevents the stapes from transmitting sound energy to the inner ear, causing the victim to suffer from either conductive or mixed hearing loss. Stapedetomy is the procedure done to continue the flow from the outer ear to the inner ear. The surgeon does an incision on the two arms of the stapes and cuts a whole in the stapedotomy which is a wall connected to the stapes. A piston-like object, called the prosthesis, is then connected to the incus is strung through the stapedotomy.

Dr. McElveen had to go to South Carolina for the rest of the week so Kiran and I split up and spent the rest of the day with separate doctors. I saw some interesting patients, some were impatient and curt white others were amiable. Nicolle, the doctor I was working with, knew all of the patients well because she’d spent so much time with them, and it was interesting seeing her interact with the ones she was fond of and the ones she wasn’t as fond of.

All in all I learned a lot about diseases in the ears and about how to deal with certain patients and how to be patient.