Internship Blog

Monthly Archives: May 2012

Chemistry major works to find treatment, prevention for diabetic retinopathy

Posted on by Posted in Chemistry, Health and Wellness, Research .

This summer I will be interning at Georgia Health Science University in Augusta, Georgia.  My program started May 21, and since then I’ve been doing a lot of reading and observing.  The goal of my research team is to develop new therapeutic targets in treatment and prevention of diabetic retinopathy.  Diabetic retinopathy is a diabetic eye disease caused by changes in the blood vessels in the retina.  It is currently the leading cause of blindness in industrialized countries.  With the increase in diabetes, more research is being devoted in trying to prevent these deteriorating illnesses.

By discovery and analyzing novel biochemical transporters and receptors in the retina, we hope to find a way to prevent or treat diabetic retinopathy.  The specifics of what project I will be working on are still being determined.  However, recent research has categorized diabetic retinopathy as an inflammatory disease.  My mentor identified the expression of GPR109A, a G-protein coupled receptor, in the retinal pigment epithelium of the retina.  A G-protein receptor senses molecules outside of the cell which then induces a cellular response inside the cell. This receptor when bonded to niacin or B-hydroxybutyrate will stimulate anti-inflammatory responses which could help to reduce the symptoms of diabetic retinopathy.  Most likely I will be continuing to study this receptor in the retina because it is an attractive drug target for treatment.

HPU professors, staff are the reason I can scream, 'I got the internship!'

Posted on by Posted in Marketing .

This summer I have been given the opportunity to intern for French/West/Vaughan in Raleigh, NC. I am thrilled to be working here. The firm does everything from advertising, marketing and public relations—all areas of interest to me. What I am especially looking forward to this summer is finally applying the skills I have acquired from the classroom and involvement with campus organizations to a real business setting. When I graduate from HPU with a B.A. in Strategic Communication and a minor in Marketing, I hope to pursue a career as an account executive for a firm, or work in-house somewhere as a publicist. My particular interest has always been fashion PR which ultimately led me to F/W/V. They are one of the few agencies in NC that work with fashion brands.

After receiving guidance from the wonderfully helpful Professor John Luecke (who introduced me to F/W/V), and multiple trips to HPU’s Career and Internship Services office, I applied for the position. I drove almost two hours and missed one of my favorite marketing classes—I had permission to do so of course, for an interview. After a few weeks of anxiously waiting, I received word that I finally landed the internship. My roommates can attest to my excitement that day. After I got the phone call, they couldn’t hear for about five minutes because of my loud scream of “I GOT THE INTERNSHIP!!”

Interning with such a sought-after firm has been a goal of mine for some time. As much as “The Hills” and other reality TV shows make getting internships appear easy, it’s not. Applying for an internship and actually getting one is a tough and competitive process. But here I am living in the Old North State’s bustling capital and interning with the top full-service Public Relations firm in the Southeast. Let the PR world adventures begin!

Meeting clients and drafting design plans at Sew Fine

Posted on by Posted in Interior Design, Internships .

My name is Erica Lang, and I am an interior design major interning this summer at Sew Fine II in Durham, NC. This company is a full service design firm specializing in custom window treatments. I absolutely love interning for them and have learned so much about the job. One of my favorite things about working for an interior design firm is that every day is different. I have met amazing clients and the three designers that I work for are experts at what they do.

In my first 2 weeks at Sew Fine II, I was able to go on a few instillations of Hunter Douglas shades, help pick out fabric for a client’s kitchen and living room draperies, deliver furniture to set up in the home and assist in picking out wallpaper and tile for a master bathroom. I have been to about 10 client’s homes already and am learning so much about interactions between the designer and home owners. When I am not out on appointments, I help out around the showroom updating the fabrics and assisting anyone that comes into the studio. I can’t wait to wake up every day and go to work knowing that I will be doing something new and exciting.

Stressful situations, hard work and the big reward

Posted on by Posted in Business, Internships .

Its been almost a month since I officially started running my own business through Student Painters, and I now have the perspective to really see how much I am learning and how much exposure I’m gaining in the world of business. The process of painting the house pictured here is best told with somewhat of a story. The journey began on a Friday with powerwashing the house to get it ready to be painted that Sunday by three painting crews including my own. On Sunday there were about 30 people at the house; including new painters, other managers such as myself, and the paint trainers. This made things a little hectic, and many of these new employees had never painted before. Since I found the house and made the sale, my crew had the task of finishing the house in the following week once training was over. Many of my painters were new to the craft, and long story short we were there until the following Friday.

In that seven day span I dove headfirst into running a business; among other things I had to let go an employee, plan around rain, and learn to handle the stress of running a small business. Looking back now it was one of the most difficult seven days of my life, and I couldn’t be more thankful for the opportunity!

Since then I have continued to improve on my management skills. I’ve seen a direct correlation between my decision making skills improving, and my employees responding to me in a positive manner. For me, being able to look back at the end of each day and know that I managed my employees as efficient as possible is a very rewarding feeling.

Thanks for reading,

Charlie Apter

Branch Manager

Student Painters

A look inside my brain and more…

Posted on by Posted in Health and Wellness, Internships, Research .

Today marked my first full week of working as a research assistant in the Yale Positive Emotion and Psychopathology (YPEP) Laboratory, and I’ve learned so much! My tasks this week have introduced me to how organized and well oiled a high-level research facility must be in order to run efficiently. These tasks have included inputting research participant data, learning laboratory protocol, and transcribing/checking MRI output. I’ve also learned about measuring sympathetic nervous system responses and MRI scanning. This is important because I will be responsible for attaching sensors to research participants and running participants through specific experiments in the near future.

Research at the YPEP lab investigates the interaction between positive emotion and physical/mental health. Most of the current projects involve individuals who have bipolar disorder and are actively manic. Mania is a period of substantially elevated, irritated, or grandiose mood lasting at least a week (or until hospitalization). A manic state is commonly characterized by a decreased need for sleep, increased motor activity, talkativeness, racing thoughts, distractibility, and an increased interest in pleasurable activities regardless of risk. People who experience this state typically exhibit positive emotion to a severe degree. That being said, I look forward to familiarizing myself with this new clinical population, and learning more about the significance of positive emotion in psychopathology!

This image is actually of my own brain from an MRI scan. I’ll be using scans like this from other peoples’ brains for research throughout the summer. Luckily, my brain is fairly normal 🙂