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SAS Day 8 – Last Day

Unfortunately, today was my last day at SAS. The day started at 10 o’clock meeting with Chris for a Demo of FM. FM is the financial management system that SAS uses to track everything, run trends, create budgets, and much more. It was really cool to see all of the features that FM offers. Another interesting thing about FM is the fact that SAS developers internally created FM. After learning about FM, we headed to meet with Imelda and Shiva to learn about general accounting. From there I met with Alex to talk about my whole experience in finance. Overall, I would say that this was a great opportunity for me to learn about something I potentially will study in college. After the wrap up with Alex, we headed to Building Q for a Pizza party with the rest of the CA students. At the party, we had a wrap-up and discussion about our experience. They then brought in a panel of young professionals to give us some advice and life tips for the future. Overall, this was an awesome experience and I can not thank SAS for the opportunity that they provided. Thanks, SAS!!

SAS Day 7 – Budgeting and More!!

The day started as usual at 10:00 o’clock in Building T. We were greeted by Lisa and taken to a staff meeting. It was really cool to learn that Lisa’s group has a weekly meeting to stay organized and keep everyone up to date on what’s going on and what needs to be done. I thought that it was very important and beneficial that Lisa’s group has a staff meeting every week. After the staff meeting, we met with Joe to learn a little bit about Budgeting and forecasting. I found it very interesting to see how SAS budgets and forecasts. After meeting with Joe, we headed down to lunch with some of the interns. After lunch, we met with Tyler to learn about Internal Audit. After meeting with Tyler, we met with Claire and Eric to learn about intercompany. From there we went to Building Q for our daily coffee session with the interns. Overall day 7 was a wonderful day and I’m looking forward to a great last day.

SAS Day 6 – Finance Day 1

The day started as usual at 10:00 o’clock except this time I went to Building T to talk with the finance team. I arrived early but it took me so long to find a parking spot that I almost ended up late. Fortunately, I was able to find an opening as someone was leaving. Once I got into the building I was greeted by Heather who took me up to Lisa’s office. Lisa then took us around the floor introducing us to all of her co-workers. She then gave us a brief overview of what she does at SAS and what her team does. After that, we headed to our first meeting with some people from marketing. The meeting was on budgeting and how the marketing team was struggling with the budgeting system that is currently in place. This meeting was really interesting because I got to see how the finance department works and supports the other departments with any of their needs. After that meeting, I went to talk to Julie and Kristina about what they do and what departments they support. From their we headed down to lunch in Building T. As usual, the lunch was amazing. After lunch, I met with Jeff the Treasury at SAS. He talked about what he does at SAS and it was really cool to learn about all the cool stuff he does. After meeting with Jeff, I met with Kelly who gave me an overview of tax and how SAS as a whole company handles taxes. Next, I met up with the interns and headed over to Building C for some coffee and open conversation. Overall, I would have to say that day one with finance was pretty fun.

SAS Day 5 – Data and Graphs

Today started as usual at 10:00 o’clock in building Q with all of the CA students. Once we all arrived we went to a conference room where Elliot, a data scientist, helped us all set up student accounts for the SAS software. After that Elliot gave us some background on what a data scientist does and what he likes about his job. After that, we all loaded up SAS studio, software that allows you to program stuff. Even though I have no programming experience Elliot was still able to teach me and all the other CA students how to do some basic programming and code. This was really fun for me because it was very hands-on and I learned a little bit about programming and coding which I thought would very hard but in reality, it wasn’t that bad. Next, we headed to building T for lunch. As usual, the lunch was really good. After lunch, we headed back to Building Q to learn about Visual analytics. First, we had Elliot and his co-worker teach us a little bit about visual analytics. Then they walked us through a couple of examples and taught us how to make our own reports. After that, they set us free and allowed us to make our own visualizations and reports. This was really exciting because I got to see how data scientist create pretty reports to talk about patterns in data. Overall I would have to say that today has been one of my favorite days because it was very hands-on and I got to create my own reports. I am looking forward to tomorrow in finance.

SAS Day 4- GatherIQ

The day was different from all the other days at SAS. Today instead of all the CA students splitting up we all met at Building R to work with a product called GatherIQ. GatherIQ is a program that uses SAS analytics to produce rich information on issues around the world. The day started with a presentation of what we would be doing today. Basically, the presentation talked about how we were going to test the product because we will not have biased opinions and we have never worked with the product before. The goal was for SAS to get information on the usability of GatherIQ. I really enjoyed testing GatherIQ because I actually got to do something hands-on. It was also cool because I was testing a product that SAS is working to refine and make better. After testing we all went to lunch for a quick break. After lunch, we went to a meeting where we were put in groups and asked to brainstorm about potential changes that could be made to improve the GatherIQ product. After brainstorming we presented to some employees in the room and were filmed so that they could show their co-workers. Overall today was a wonderful day and I am looking forward to Monday where we are going to do some more hands-on stuff with some SAS products.

Day 3 at SAS – Last Day in HR

The day started as usual at 10:00 am meeting in Building Q. Instead of meeting with Christie in the morning I met with Allison to learn a little bit about what she does in HR. Allision has a unique job because she works for HR, but she is a marketer. Allison’s main job is to figure out how to best market SAS and all the jobs SAS has available for both students and professionals. After meeting with Allision to learn about what she does we headed to a meeting with the College Recruiting Team to figure out what the would like to have when going to career fairs to present SAS and the available careers at SAS. It was cool to sit in on this meeting and pitch in my ideas about some cool freebies that SAS can have to pass out to students. After this meeting, we headed to building R for lunch. (So far, I have been to 3 of the 5 cafeterias at SAS.) As always, the lunch was amazing. After lunch, we had some time to kill so we went to the SAS warehouse and shipping facility. It was interesting to tour these buildings because sometimes when you are at a company you kind of forget about the logistics and all the stuff that runs in the background of SAS. After the quick tour, we headed to an Intern Expo information meeting in Building V. The intern expo meeting was on an optional presentation that interns can give at the end of the summer of what they accomplished throughout their internship at SAS. It was cool to talk with some of the interns and hear a little bit about their background. After the intern expo meeting, we headed back to Building Q to wrap up our day and debrief on my experience with HR. Unfortunately, today was my last day shadowing HR. It was a little sad because I met so many cool people that were awesome to work with and I will miss them dearly. However, I am looking forward to new adventures in the finance department as SAS.

SAS Day 2 – Meetings and Demos

My second day at SAS was jam-packed with meetings and things to learn. I started the day off per-usual at 10:00 o’clock meeting with Christie Dougherty in the lobby of building Q. From there we went to a conference room and called so potential job candidate to schedule in-person interviews for them and their potential managers. Next, I went to Kayla’s office with another co-worker to jump in on a call with a representative from Handshake. Handshake is a platform that allows business and college students connect so that the recruiting process for business becomes painless. Typically, businesses have to post jobs at every college separately, but Handshakes platform allows businesses to post the job just once and it goes to all of the colleges the business would like to post the job at. The whole purpose of this meeting was for the representative at Handshake to explain, present and demo the platform to Kayla and the Recruiting team at SAS because they are currently looking for new ways to keep up with the new technologically advanced recruiting methods. Listening in on this demo was awesome because I learned so much about Handshake and the ease that it provides for both businesses and student. It gives me excitement knowing that I will probably be using this platform when I am in college looking for a job or internship. After the meeting, we headed to Building T for a delicious lunch with some of the Tech Support Academy Graduates. After lunch, I met with Danielle Pavliv the director of diversity and inclusion at SAS. From there she talked about her job and what she does a diversity and inclusions director at SAS. After talking for a little we headed to a meeting on how SAS can connect with Historically Black Colleges and Universities. At the meeting, we were planning a day for students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities to come and tour SAS and learn about the careers SAS has to offer. Overall I would say that day to was a very busy and successful day. I look forward to day 3!!

SAS Day 1 – HR

Today was my first day at SAS, an analytical software company that helps analyze and manage data to help customers with decision making. Although SAS is located right across the street from Cary Academy I did have a little bit of trouble navigating the large campus, but fortunately, I arrived at Building Q on time. The day started with a quick tour of Building Q and its cafeteria. After that, I listened in on a two-hour SAS cultural presentation to give me a better understanding of the background of SAS and what they do. From there I headed over to Building C for lunch in one of the five cafeterias on the SAS Campus. The lunch was pretty awesome because they had almost anything you could ask for and it was all delicious. After lunch, I headed back to building Q to meet up with Christie Dougherty a University Recruiting Coordinator at SAS. She took Jessica Judge and I to a conference room to talk about what she does at SAS. I learned a lot about how SAS connects with colleges in order recruit highly talented students to come work/intern at SAS. It was very interesting to get an understanding of the entire process of how SAS actually goes about recruiting students from colleges to come work/intern for them. After that, I went Jess’s office, one of Christie’s co-workers. During my time at Jess’s office, I learned about the professional job recruiting and got to listen in on Jess give a job offer to someone. Additionally, I got to listen in on a conversation with Jess and a manager about moving forward with some candidates for a job. Overall, I would say that Day 1 was a very successful, fun day and I am really excited for Day 2 at SAS!!