18IssacF – CA Work Experience Program

Artsy Fartsy

Have you ever been to a conference or presentation and one of the slides was so beautiful you were like “wow, how did they ever make that slide.” Well apparently marketing works in conjunction with another department, to be honest I forget its name, but they make beautiful slides together. The design was pretty incredible. They go for a simple aesthetic which seems to be the wave of the future.

Then we toured the customer contact building, shout out to Kevin for incredible navigation. The building is actually on the way to kung fu tea. They deal with both angry and confused customers, helping them find their way.

Lastly we had a pizza party and a career panel where some older members of the young professionals network gave us advice on college, life, and jobs. Just kidding, they were pretty young.

Overall I’d like to thank SAS for teaching me a lot, showing me the power of statistics and data analytics, and for hiring such great people. I enjoyed meeting the vast array of personalities, backgrounds, and people that make up the company of SAS.

Kevin!

Anotha One

Another day in marketing, another day with Kevin. First we met with Mr. Jobes and learned how marketing uses algorithms to filter who the potential buyers are and then ship them off to sales. Then we learned about a project, but it’s confidential.

After lunch Mr. Payne took us through the maze of video production. We went into the depths of building V and spied on a couple meetings through his cameras. He was a pretty cool guy.

Here’s some simple code from the other day. It’s very simple, but it looks cool.

DICE-ing with Kevin

Today they paired me with Kevin. I guess they thought we made a good team. The main theme today was that we should get a LinkedIn or we will never get a job. I think I’ll heed that advice. I would like a job in the future.

We were with marketing today and there were some really cool personalities.

At lunch we had even more scrumptious food and we met some vibrant marketing interns. Kate and Jack gave lots of good advice on life, college, and jobs.

Here’s of my compatriot within the C building.

Chicken and Waffles

Today we used SAS visual analytics to make our own graphs. We also learned a bit about SAS programming and how to sort data sets.

This was one of the most interesting days because we got to see what the SAS data scientists do on a daily basis, and how those colorful graphs are made. I think we oftentimes don’t appreciate the time, labor, and effort that goes into the data reports we see every day. The SAS programming also opened my eyes as to how data analytics could be used to optimize profit and find hard to see trends. While this post is short, today was one of the most action packed days, it’s just easy to sum up in a few words.

Dr. Inman, a data scientist at SAS said something pretty profound: “The most important trait in a data scientist is humility. The willingness to continually question themselves and their work” Wow.

Here’s a picture of me and a graph. It has two lines on it.

There was also chicken and waffles for lunch.

GatherIQ

Day 4 – Today we had the privilege of testing an up and coming SAS app called GatherIQ which aims to bring hard to find data to the masses. It often targets hot button topics such as clean water access, immigration paths, and sepsis. I had the privilege of partnering with Kevin Chen, and together we explored the app, testing its usability. While we felt the data was very cool, some of it was very hard to interpret and counterintuitive; not good for an app meant for the general populace. Kevin gave some very honest feedback.

We did see a lot of potential for the app within a school setting, allowing students to examine problems that wouldn’t normally be possible.

At the end of the day, Kevin, Nancy (a person from another school), and I designed and proposed ways to make GatherIQ even more revolutionary. Nancy sketched an interface that resembled Instagram with a top stories page, a search function, and a personal profile page. Kevin thought of an ingenious rewards system that encourages progression and engagement within the app; calling for users to share and create their own graphs to unlock cooler designs and more advanced graphing options. We also brainstormed an idea (which Kevin and Nancy both shot down) to make the experience more customizable. Instead of users just copying and pasting graphs, they would take the vast amounts of variables that SAS has already isolated, and use the database to compare and contrast two variables of their choosing. This would allow people to discover relationships between the relevant variables and GatherIQ would provide the platform to share these discoveries. Then we presented; this is when Kevin really shined.

Have a good weekend.

Make Dat Money

Day 3 – Today was the final day in finance. When I began, I was a bit worried everybody would be doing the same thing, but I realized that finance encompasses a wide variety of occupations.

The most exciting part was when I shadowed Milinda and Debbie. They showed me the monthly newsletter they use to keep everyone updated, but it was also interesting because I got to see the intersection between statistics and finance. I got a better grasp as to how those skills could be cross applied to say many areas. Debbie majored in stats and began in sales, demonstrating to potential clients the power of SAS tech. Then she moved to finance where she now uses SAS tech to explain abnormalities in SAS’s revenue flow.

I also hung out with the interns for a while.

In summation, finance was kind of the SAS for SAS. SAS goes out into the world, collects data, and then interprets in for their clients. Finance takes SAS’s financial data, cleans it up, and then interprets it for SAS executives.

$ave Dat Money

Today I continued to delve deeper into the world of SAS finance. The first thing I went to was a meeting about meetings. They were basically scheduling meetings for the future. It also had something to do with this thing called “change management” which is all about this system overhaul that the department is going through.

Then I met Mr. Jeff Eakes who is head of Treasury at SAS and also a member of Cary Academy’s board of directors. SAS has around 60 branches world wide and the treasury’s job is to consolidate all the different kinds of currencies that are brought in. HQ used to force their international branches to exchange their revenue into USD, but they stopped doing that so now HQ receives a large portion of their revenue in foreign currency. Part of the treasury’s job is to exchange those currencies into USD at the most opportune time. Mr. Eakes said the exchange market is very volatile right now. I can’t imagine why.

Then I met with Tyler who is in charge of internal auditing. At first I thought I was in for a snoozer but this man loved his job. He spoke of it with a passion I didn’t think was possible for an auditor, and I learned a lot about the auditing process. They essentially first examine the flow of money, and then the numbers. We also discussed Taiwanese culture as his wife is Taiwanese.

Then I ate lunch with the college interns. That was fun. Matthew Cinoman was also in the T building cafeteria.

After lunch I met with some of the coolest people: the tax people. They are legitimately geniuses because their job is to essentially take the tax code and find every area SAS can save money. Ms. Kelly literally had Trump’s new tax code printed out and it was 7 inches high. She had read through most of it and was already devising new money saving schemes. The fact that she knew the tax code so well amazed me. We also discussed the difference between an S-corp and a C-corp.

Lastly, I met with the intercompany department which is charge of collecting royalties from SAS’s international branches. They had some of the coolest backgrounds as one went to college in Iran and one went to college in the Philippines.

Then I walked around SAS campus with the college interns for an hour. That was really fun, and I got to know them a lot better.

Overall, I’ve been amazed at the work these people do, but I’ve also really appreciated how interested they seem in me. They’ve asked a lot of questions about my passions, and have offered some great advice that will guide me into the future. All of these people have a ridiculous amount of life experience, and I’m just along for the ride.

Here is a college intern, Trey, with some fancy rocks.

Day 1 at the SAS Institute of Technology

Today was a wild day. I had flown back in from a debate tournament really late the night before, and I had not really slept that much on the trip itself (case writing was pretty last minute). But in the words of George Washington, “better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” I woke up a bit late, and did regretfully show up seven minutes late; parking was horrendous as well. I apologize to both the SAS institution and Cary Academy for not representing the Charger way. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I was greeted by a smiling Mrs. Dougherty (University Recruiting Director) and the six smiling faces of Matthew Cinoman, Kevin Chen, Matthew Schaeffer, Megan Tunley, Jessica Judge, and Will Parker. That’s when I knew it was going to be a good day.

We first began with an intro session to what SAS was all about. Through the videos, I began to get a better grasp of what data analytics is really all about. I’m pretty sure at its core, it’s all about isolating a multitude of variables and then finding the relationship between the important ones through a series of graphs and info charts. I thought the most intriguing part of this field however, was the human aspect that was still necessary in an industry that’s so saturated by technology. There are still data analysts that have to interpret the data and convey the information to the people that need it, instead of the computer just churning out conclusions and then printing them out on a piece of paper. As AI continues to grow that might not ring as true, but it was comforting to know that as of now, there is still a place for humans in the world of data analytics.

After this session we had lunch in the C building. It was free (although SAS employees have to pay, it’s still very cheap) and delicious; an unbeatable combo. Another thing about SAS’s amenities is that they have soda available everywhere. For a kid that grew up obsessed with sodas it’s a dream come true. However, because of athletic pursuits (haha), I am a bit more health conscious now.

After lunch I went to the finance division of SAS. I was toured around by John Wilson, and the first person I met really just seemed genuinely interested in me. We discussed potential majors, and I got a better idea of what options were available. She majored in accounting, and she does more project based work. I also learned that FASBY kind of standardizes the field of accounting. Then I met with Mr. Wilson and we talked about basketball, then he showed me a spreadsheet. From what I can tell, I’m pretty sure it did mainly subtraction and found percent change. Lastly, I met with a guy who was super nice. He apparently keeps track of all the expenses, but I thought the coolest part was that he also had to track how much all of SAS’s assets depreciate. In general, these people were incredible at using Excel, and inspired me to learn the power of the spreadsheet.

*I apologize for any grammar mistakes, I’m a bit tired