cawep2016

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

IMG_20160601_155059619

At a lunch meeting today I was asked what I would change about the intern program at RTI, my answer: nothing.

There was a tense silence during which Cameron and I looked at each other, both deliberating the entire experience, but everything had gone so well I couldn’t think of anything even remotely critical to say. Take today for instance, we met so many different, amazing, people. First we met Marty, a chemical engineer, who was so incredibly passionate about his work that he talked to us for hours about alternative fuel and increasing the efficiency of preexisting fuel options. He even toured us around all the labs and pointed out different radiators and their functions.

Then came Seung-Hyu Cho. She grew up and studied in South Korea before realizing she wanted to be a scientist and transferred to the University of Cincinnati to fulfill her dream. She talked about her job at RTI and how she got to where she is. Stephanie also shared her experience coming from Clemson to a corporate lab to RTI. But of course the lunch was not complete without a lengthy conversation about cats!

The coolest part of the day came when Stephanie and I (and later Phil) assembled test HIV devices from the films we cast yesterday. The job was tedious no doubt, and I’m sure Stephanie dreads every minute, but I thought it was so much fun to work in a group – constantly solving problems, coming up with new solutions, and joking about it the whole time. I learned how to heat seal the film and stuff the “drug” into the film using a complex (and rather scrappy) series of homemade funnels and “poking devices”. As it turns out I know about pretty much no movies ever. To quote Phil, “ask her if she knows a movie..any movie…the answer will be no”. And ironically a high tech lab filled with millions of dollars of equipment has a lack of functioning scissors (which caused us to label them with happy or sad faces). I think it’s awesome how they can make every chore fun and exciting. It truly is a testament to the ambiance of RTI. I wish I could never leave.

IMG_20160601_201912

Testing out our device with this gigantic needle

Left: Phil goofing around with the labeled scissors- the good, the bad, and the ugly  🙂 😦  

Right: Hey look that’s me! 

Day 6: Contacts

I returned to the Southpoint location today and continued to shadow Dr. Besharat. There were a lot of patients who came in for contact lenses today. Through shadowing I got learn about the distinct differences between using glasses and contact lenses. Glasses are usually more effective than contacts for two reasons. The first is that a contact lens makes contact with the surface of the eye which can lead to dryness and irritation on the eye. Dryness and irritation ultimately lead to a compromise of a patients vision. If not managed correctly dryness can lead to clouded vision and ultimately the contact lenses cannot be used again and the patient will have to go back to glasses. The second reason for the change in disparity is because of astigmatism. Astigmatism is irregularity in he curverture of the surface of the eye. Instead of being one smooth curve, the eye has varying areas of sloping. These variances lead to light entering the eye in irregular way and vision to be compromised. Glasses can be custom made to a persons eye so a correction for astigmatism can be added. The shape of a contact lens is standard and there are limitations to the amount if astigmatism correction that can be added to the prescription. In general a contact lens and glasses have different prescription because the lens sits on the surface of the eye whereas glasses sit on the ridge of the nose so there is a gap between the correction and the eyes. The below photos are of the machinery used to read the glasses,  evaluate and rectify the prescription, and also of a case with lenses in them that can be used to mimic the effect of a contact lens:

Katie Day 6-Peachy

Today I helped run the Interfaith Food Shuttle stand at the Wakemed Farmer’s Market again. There were even more vendors than last week! I recognized some familiar faces, and also met some new local businesses. My favorite stand was the peach/peach ice cream stand right beside us, which smelled delicious all day! It was also great to meet some of the same EBT customers I had seen last week. On woman with three children remarked how she had been  waiting all year for the Wakemed Farmer’s Market to open back up for the season. It’s wonderful to see the direct impact of bringing fresh produce to a food desert.

Peach stand customers

Panoramic view of the market

Katie Day 4-Farm Fresh

Today I got a tour of the Interfaith Food Shuttle farm. I remember volunteering here before with my advisory for service days. Today, however, I got a better look into the different ways the farm helps the community. Parts of the farm are dedicated to different farmers and farming communities. For example, one section is designated for the use of immigrants who are unfamiliar with our food system. Also, I got to see the IFFS farm stand just across the road, where fresh produce harvested from the farm is sold.

Farm stand
Produce that was being washed during my visit

Day 7 – The Review Room

Today was my second day with Trailblazer Studios, and today I worked with the post-production department. I spent the day reviewing an episode of Sister Wives with a group of editors and producers who have been working on the show for a while. There were four of us in the room and one gentleman who called in from L.A. There was the editor/finisher, Alan, who does most of the final touches on the show such as stabilization, color correction, and brightness adjustments. There was also a coordinator from Figure 8 who is a producer of the show, as well as a woman from Trailblazer Studios. The specific episode of sister wives we were reviewing was a two hour special. The whole review itself took about three and a  half hours total. However, after the review the editor still had a lot of work left to do making sure the show was ready to send to TLC. Despite a few connectivity errors with the guy calling in from L.A. the review went very well, or not very well depending on the point of view. From what I was told there were more fixes than normal which would mean more work for Alan, but good that they were able to fix all of the them, so long as Alan had time. Alan talked to me a little bit about the things he was  trying to fix, and I learned a lot by listening to the kinds of things that were noted both during the review session and while Alan was editing. I will definitely keep those things in mind the next time I go out for a shoot, or sit in the editing booth. Ha! That rhymes. TBStudios - Finishing Room

It’s about time

Today Joe and I were able to find out what was going on with the time stamps for the data points and after a lot of time experimenting with the programming, and multiple calls to the manufacturer we were able to sync the time on the computer to the time stamps. After fixing the time stamps we measured the dimensions of the sensor to make sure it would fit on our cart. While Joe and I were over with the cart we were able to work on it for a little while. We were able to create a mount for one of the sensors that was movable so we can adjust the height. I have included a picture of the sensor at maximum height. cart with sensor max height.jpg

Liza Day 5: It’s Friday!!!

Today was such a chill and relaxing day at McKinney. We presented the possible rips to Jonathan, the head of Creatives at the agency, and it was a success!! After hearing Jonathan’s positive feedback, the team now feels good about the business pitch and will continue editing and putting together the rips. 🙂

Every Friday afternoon, McKinney has an event called “Pub” where everyone gathers, eats pizza, has some drinks, and celebrates the work accomplished in the past week. It’s also a time to get excited for the weekend ahead! I think having a balance between work and enjoyment at any business is crucial because it lets the staff take a break from their busy schedules and socialize with their colleagues. The pizza was delicious btw !!

I continued finding rips and sitting in group discussions until it was the end of the day. I’m looking forward to seeing Regina Tuesday and I can’t wait to hear about her trip to LA!

-Liza

Getting A Shot At Marketing

IMG_2679

Today at centerline I was provided with an opportunity to see what I could contribute to a marketing agency. As soon as I walked in I met with another woman from the accounts department who pretty much immediately gave me an assignment to work on.

She asked me, ” How are you with writing?” I said I loved it, and she told me about a project she’d give me a shot at. The project, without breaching my agreement of confidentiality, is for editorials and press releases for a pretty major event. Really what she asked me to do is come up with tag lines and phrases to place over the pictures that had to embody a few specific themes. I went to work on those for about an hour and composed a spread of around seven different options. For this project I really had to think about how I could best encompass the themes of passion and strength into a brief and powerful message. Later on I showed her what I came up with ( which was just a touch nerve-racking)  and received really amazing feedback. In fact there was one specific tag line that I came up with which she noted she found really beautiful. Upon her request I sent those over to her to review again, and so who knows, maybe I’ll end up having it selected! For the second part of the day I met with Tyler an ACD ( associate creative director) who was just heaps of fun. We walked around through all the departments as he recreated a typical day in his life, and just chatted to everyone! He explained that his job  as an ACD is about 80% oversight and 20% doing, as he creates creative visions and concepts, but also has to oversee the entirety of the process from start to finish. Because he is always so busy and constantly moving around he showed me his preferred method of transport around the agency- a razor scooter. I sat in on a couple of meetings, one being a team process meeting and another being a client review and then before i knew it the day was over. Another cool day down!

Evie

Real Interning- Day 5- Tuesday

Luckily we had a little later start on Tuesday, I was worn out from Nationals this weekend. When we arrived, Andy handed me 30 pages of a bill and asked me to do a “one pager” on it. This means to read the incredibly complicated bill and summarise the entire thing in less than one page. This information is then given to the team of lobbyists so they know what to tell the congressmen when they meet. It took me over an hour to actually read the bill because I had no idea what it was about. It was amending over 100 different other bills and statutes that I had to look up to see what it was really doing. It repealed a mill tax, invested in Research and development, gave tax cuts to companies that moved to NC, gave money to poor countries to invest further in community colleges. I was somewhat overwhelmed. But I trudged on and figured out what it was actually doing. Then we went down to the Legislative Office Building or the LOB and took notes at a committee meeting. Then Andy had to do some work and I had to do some real interning work. Legislators rely on lobbyists for a lot of things. They are not always the sneaky people that hold campaign contributions over the heads of congressmen to get what the want. Congressmen cannot possibly read every bill that is put in front of them, there are over 1000 bills in the house right now, and most of them are over 10 pages, it’s just not possible to understand them all. So, they rely on lobbyists to give them the “one pagers” and help explain to them the positives and negatives of the bills. The lobbyists obviously have a side that they would like the congressmen to vote for, but most of the time they provide information on both sides of the issue and then try and persuade the Congressmen to join their side. So, the lobbyists and their teams drum up this information so that the Congressmen can read it, and on Tuesday, my job was to get it to them. I had a packet of 40 copies of a 5-page brief that I had to distribute. I then had to go to each individual office of each member of the Finance committee and give them each a packet so that they could know what was in the bill and how a certain client felt about it. After that, we attended another Senate Session and I then got to leave a little early and do some blogging!

20160601_123949

Okay…UNC isn’t so Bad…

I’ve always been :/ about UNC, especially as a potential college choice. But after shadowing the staff of The Daily Tarheel, I realized it’s a pretty chill university with many different opportunities, even if there are still undesirable aspects of the school in general.

I didn’t do any work, as most of my experiences were shadowing sort of deals, but I still learned a ton about the way a daily school publication worked (even though during the summer they just do a weekly publication), and the amount of work required for the students in combination with their regular academics was astounding to me.

The space is split up into different “desks” organized by subject, and the one that appealed to me the most was Statnat (state national). They said there was a potential job for me there next summer!