As I walked into Bavarian Nordic this morning, I was quickly swept into a conference room. There, I took my seat and observed the Skype call that Ms. Handelsman and Janelle were conducting. They often have early morning meetings because the other part of the company is housed in Europe and there is a time difference. This meeting was a Brachyury core team meeting. They discussed various updates and ideas for the upcoming phases of the clinical trial. They might as well have been speaking in Danish because I didn’t understand much of it! All the employees in Denmark and Germany are fluent in English so there is not a communication barrier. After the meeting concluded, I stayed behind and asked Ms. Handelsman some questions that occurred to me during the meeting.
After Ms. Handelsman had to leave to attend another meeting, Erika shuttled me and Kaitlin into another conference room where we learned about statistics through a video and practice problems. We also went through a very long lecture about biostatistics for beginners. I noticed that Erika really loves her job! I hope that I will fall in love with whatever job I have in the future. Once we finished our lectures and practice, we moved into a real-world example. Erika printed copies of the Brachyury statistical analysis plan for us to study. It was so thick it must have taken a whole tree to print! After some hardcore reading, we decided it was time for lunch.
Kaitlin and I ate our lunch in the very luxurious break room and talked. She is going to graduating in December and is excited to be working in the clinical trials industry. She also gave me some good advice about college (i.e. visit the college you want to go to before you decide (she did not)).
We picked a very good week to come because today was the company’s annual outing to the Durham Bull’s game. Janelle, Kaitlin, and I all piled into Erika’s van and headed to Durham. We were met with TONS of traffic and a deficit of parking spaces. We had to park very far away so we were a little late to the game. We talked and watched the game and munched on nachos and French fries. After a fun couple hours, it was time to head back to Bavarian Nordic. We were lucky enough to be given free parking since we were so far away! Once again, we got into Erika’s van and started the drive. When we got back, I thanked Erika for driving and headed home. The morning was very informative and the afternoon was very fun! All in all, it was a great day.
