Internship Blog

Monthly Archives: July 2012

Top 10 lessons learned at my internship

Posted on by Posted in Internships, Marketing .

I took a bit of a different approach – making a top 10 of the summer! Hope you enjoy:

This summer, I had the amazing opportunity to intern at Kaye Communications. With only 2 more full days of work before my internship comes to a close and I head to the beach for the last few days of summer, I’ve decided to come up with the Top 10 highlights and learning experiences of this summer.

10. Learning to use Excel: I hated it at first. As a communications student, I figured that Excel was only for math and numbers, but it turns out that Excel comes in use for just about everything in life. I would highly suggest learning how to use Excel for any major!

9. Media Lists, Media Lists, Media Lists: I have learned how to edit, update, and locate contacts on media lists throughout the summer. In addition, I created my own “media list” for all of the local schools, with information regarding their principals, music teachers, community relations contact, with all of their contact info! You saw my older post about turning a scary spreadsheet into a not so scary spreadsheet; I owned that spreadsheet!

8. Venturing around Downtown Boca: Most of you probably don’t know this about me but I’m a Connecticut girl at heart. I only moved down to South Florida last August, so living and working down here has been an adventure in itself. I remember feeling very accomplished after being sent to different locations around the city and not getting lost (or too lost)!

7. The Iguana: While in the middle of a very important Webinar about the “Top Ten Tips for Social Media,” one of my co-workers shouted out to everyone in the office, “LOOK OUTSIDE!” An iguana had come up to our window (we’re on the first floor of our building) to say hello. Another part of getting used to South Florida. Lizards and snakes and frogs oh my!

6. Edit, then edit again: One of the most valuable lessons I learned throughout my time here is that you can never edit too many times. Additionally, it is so important to print out your copy and edit on hard paper. After reading on a computer screen for so many hours a day, words can become a blur and mistakes can be overlooked. More times than not I found silly mistakes in my writing when I printed out my work. I will definitely continue this practice when I return to HPU.

5. Phone Etiquette: Some people are just not friendly on the phone! I consider myself to be a lively and polite person, but despite all the social graces you may possess, some people just do not like talking on the phone. I was more entertained with this than insulted and found it funny to call people back until I got the information I was looking for, no matter how many excuses or hang-ups I received. Oh well, at least I got my job done, right?! My favorite experience on the phone was speaking with one client, who was so sweet and extremely southern and would only refer to me as “darlin’.” There was no need to ask who was calling once I heard her southern accent!

4. When in doubt, ask: As students and interns, sometimes we are afraid to ask either for an explanation or clarity. I try to be as self-sufficient in the office as possible but there are just some times in which a clearer and more experienced answer is needed. I guess I had to hop off my high horse and ask for help. Most importantly, asking for help does not mean you are weak, if anything it shows that you are inquisitive and looking to do the best job possible.

3. Office Comedians: While the office place can be a very serious environment, the other interns and I did enjoy a laugh or two, or two hundred. Picture three sorority girls, a recent college grad guy, and two bosses. We liked to joke around and have fun! I think that is so important in the office because it builds relationships to help work run more smoothly. I have gained not only work colleagues out of this internship but true friends!

2. Be Prepared for the Unexpected: While I am one of those girls who lives by my hourly to-do list in my agenda that I carry around with me everywhere, clients can have an emergency at any minute and that causes you to drop all your plans and attend to them. This experience has taught me to be more flexible and help as much as possible.

1. Writing: From this internship, I have has such an amazing opportunity to improve my writing. While I am still not sure what I want to be when I “grow up,” I know I want to have writing be a major part of it. My boss has helped me to better my writing and find my own critiques. I believe this has strengthened my editing skills and will set me apart in the future.

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood…"

Posted on by Posted in Chemistry, Internships, Research .

Thank you for coming back for more in the Colyer lab at Wake Forest University! In my last update, I had completed a lot of data analysis from by injection pressure and voltage tests using pre-column labeling on the Beckman CE. Afterward, I met with Dr. Colyer to discuss and lay out my next series of tests.  

One of the first things we decided to do was alter the injection pressure method by varying the time while leaving the pressure constant. This method did make the resulting graph and its resolution much better and of course more accurate. Sometime slight changes can help.

The next big thing was beginning on-column labeling verses what I have been doing with pre-column labeling. With on-column labeling, the dye is pre-mixed with the buffer in the capillary, and then the fructose is injected by itself. Now that I have switched, I had to make a new buffer solution with the SQ-BA dye within it and then run a long condition of my capillary. Here is where things got a little tricky!!! My data was not coming out as expected – a lot of “noise” from the background and low resolution of the major peaks. After pondering on my methods – I had a eureka moment! I made a new fructose in phosphate solution to inject to start with a fresh solution and pre-filtered the buffer before combining my buffer and dye. When one fills the capillary vials, they filter the solutions; however, when I filtered the buffer and dye solution, the dye was being retained on the nylon filter, therefore not binding and separating with the fructose on the capillary. By pre-filtering, I ensured the buffer solution would be filtered while also ensuring the dye remained in solution.

The problems I was experiencing began to subside with the changes mentioned above. Over the next few days, I ran a series of tests including – buffer/dye only, fructose injection, water plug injection, increased fructose concentration injection, and more. Check back with me to see how they all turned out!

Marie Curie stated, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Basically, when you hit a roadblock – do not give up. Instead, step back, ponder on what you are doing, and you might just figure it out.

Gaining Analytical Skills for Social Media

Posted on by Posted in Business, Internships, Marketing .

Although my internship is within worldwide marketing at SAS, I was lucky enough to take a few software classes last week. I took two classes that lasted two and a half days. The first class was on how to build models using SAS Sentiment Analysis Studio, and the second was on how to build models using SAS Content Categorization Studio. Sentiment Analysis Studio can take text files, or in my case tweets, and judge whether the content is positive or negative. It uses advanced linguistic rules to judge the sentiment of the text. Content Categorization Studio uses similar language processing and advanced linguistic techniques to identify key topics and phrases in text.

In a nutshell, by using these two pieces of software I can take thousands of tweets and determine what they are talking about and whether it is positive or negative. Amazing! Content Categorization and Sentiment Analysis are two of the major pieces that make up the SAS Social Media Analytics product. I am very happy to have these new skills and techniques to put on my resume. When I am at school I make sure to use all of HPU’s abundant resources, so I was happy to take advantage of some SAS training during my internship. Till next week!

Science and research are a team effort

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

Sorry for the delay in postings guys – the last two weeks have been really busy, but have shown me the value/power of communication and diligence. Like all research assistants, I carry out a variety of tasks, but I’ve also been privileged enough to lead the Eye Tracking Analysis (ETA) Team…just in case you didn’t notice, psychologists really enjoy a good acronym! With this job comes the responsibility of delegating tasks and ensuring that the data that is collected for eye tracking is properly collected, organized, and accounted for. Each member of the team has to be aware of potential obstacles, and encouraged to give feedback concerning possible remedies.

Leading this group of researchers has helped me hone my communication skills and has also taught me that you can never ask too many questions. I have been in constant e-mail correspondence with other researchers, my lab manager, and even the primary investigator of the lab while she’s away in Africa! I’ve also learned a lot from steady communication with an eye tracking expert in Boston. While I sometimes feel like my questions concerning the data are stupid, I’ve discovered that most of my questions lead to productive answers, (if not more questions) that will hopefully improve the project in the end!

My eye tracking team has also helped me realize that it’s important to include multiple perspectives when searching for answers to problems. On Wednesday, we scanned 5 different researchers using the eye tracking technology, and because of our combined efforts we were able to rule out numerous possible reasons for an occasional faulty data set. This experience reminded me that science as a whole is a collaborative work, and it requires many dedicated individuals to ensure that great research is carried out.

A lesson in research: Expect the unexpected

Posted on by Posted in Chemistry, Internships, Research .

Hello readers,

It is crazy how fast a summer internship can go!  I can’t believe my nine weeks are already done, but in such a short time I was able to learn so much.  Throughout my summer, I quickly realized how paying attention in my classes such as Biochemistry and Molecular Biology prepared me for such an intensive project.  I was able to learn a variety of lab techniques and understand all about diabetic retinopathy.  Although a lot of my experiments did not turn out exactly as expected, I learned that this is part of research.  One must be very perseverant in order to succeed in research and learn how to problem solve issues.  If you are in college, I really recommend applying for an internship next summer.  It is a great way to apply what you are learning in the classroom and receive some hands on experience.  It also is a great way to forge connections and make new friends. 

I presented my research in a poster presentation this past week.  Although it was sad I was going to be leaving GHSU, I was very proud of my poster.  There was a two hour session in which other mentors and graduate students came around and asked questions about our research.  Being able to present yourself is critical to succeeding in both research and medicine.  So I took this opportunity as a learning experience and received many complements on not only my research, but my ability to understand my project.