Business – Page 2 – CA Work Experience Program

Day 1 – Kai

Today we had lots of orientation and background around the NC Symphony and what its mission and goals are. The CFO Rob Schiller had a presentation for me about the economic aspects of the company. This was especially interesting as they had to explain how COVID affected their financials and ticket sales, and how they were able to overcome that. Also I was able to learn about the education outreach which is a instrumental part of the functioning of the finances which brought a new facet needed to understand. There is a concert this week and next week in which I am looking forward to learning about the preparation needed for these events!

Kai

SAS Day 8

Wow final day at SAS! It really has gone by quickly and I’m thankful to have had an opportunity to take part in this program. Today started out meeting with a technical consultant at SAS. Melissa told us about her career journey, and what lead her to SAS. She noted that her favorite part about working at SAS was the people, and talked to us about what consulting really is. We learned that consulting is basically people paying money for your services. Since SAS software is so complex, as a technical consultant she works to help guide companies who are using SAS software on how to use and implement it. After we met with Melissa, we met with Rani our final meeting of the program. Rani talked to us about her role in alliance. She acts as a liaison between SAS and some of its partners, like Deloitte and KPMG. She told us about the variety of jobs she has had before SAS. For our final activity in Risk, we had a round table with 3 of the summer interns who we asked various questions to. We talked to the interns about what lead them to SAS, why they chose to major in Comp Sci and many other things. As we wrapped up our activities with the Risk department, it was time to head over to building A for the conclusion of the program. In A we met all of the other CA interns and headed downstairs for lunch. After lunch, we had the opportunity to present our Gather IQ videos to some people who build the app and who work in HR for SAS.

Overall, It was great learning more about how business work these last two weeks at SAS.

SAS Day 7

Today began our second day in the Risk Management division. We started off the day listening to a webinar about risk management sales. Pauline told us that SAS offers many webinars and live streams that any of their employees can listen for self-education. After this, we had the opportunity to meet with Kim Bentley. Kim is the executive assistant to Troy, the VP of the Risk division. She talked to us about her unique career journey and how she ended up at SAS. She worked on Wallstreet and has a masters in music. Her main responsibilities today include helping Troy with his travel schedule, managing events, and everything in between. After meeting with Kim, we went back to Pauline’s office. She had her weekly call with her team and boss via Skype. During the meeting, each of Pauline’s team members gave their weekly update on what they’ve been working on. Once the meeting was over, we headed over to R for lunch with Jess Mayo who also had 2 CA students shadowing her. After lunch, Saavan and I began a Risk Management research project during which we searched for current trends in Risk globally. We worked on this for the rest of the day and sent Pauline a document with links to articles before departing after day 7.

Day 6 at SAS!

I had so much fun in the Global Hosting & US Professional Services sector of SAS in Building 6! On Day 6, we met our host, Scott Sims, who is a technical consulting manager in GHUSPS. He explained to us all the different aspects of consulting in a managerial position, and we talked about future career paths!

After that, we met and talked to Cammie, who is a project manager at SAS. She presented a PowerPoint titled “Consulting 101” and showed us all the different aspects of how a big corpora tion like SAS works together. The main things I learned from this meeting were that

1. It is extremely important to step up and out of your comfort zone. In terms of job growth, just meeting your job expectations are not enough. You need to go above and beyond.
2. The GHUSPS division provides value to the customer that motivates them to buy more and hire more services. They educate, advise, and implement.
3. I also learned that project management would be something I may be very interested in in the future. I am excited to learn more about it.

Next, we had lunch with a few of Scott’s coworkers in Building R. It was so cool to see all the different lunch options SAS offers and talk to people with different positions at SAS.

After lunch, we talked to Angela Hall, who is the director of consulting at GHUSPS. She spoke to us about the many adversities women in the STEM field such as herself had to overcome to get into the position they are in today. She was so friendly and outgoing, and you could tell that she truly cares about her employees, as she often plans group outings to make for a better work environment.

Lastly, we spoke to Clay Setser, who is a Solutions Specialist in GHUSPS. He specializes in Data for Good projects, which is so unique and special. Specifically he taught us about clumping, which is crucial for companies and even the government to recognize and differentiate who’s who. This directly connects with the child welfare program in NC and even the criminal justice system in NC. It was really interesting to see how important data and analytics are in terms of bettering the world and making it a safer place for all.

Day 5 at SAS!

Unfortunately, I could not attend the SAS work experience on day 4. However, on day 5, I caught up with my group. We were tasked to come up with a video campaign that will spread awareness about the unfortunate lack of access in many areas of the world, while focusing on the global goal.

Targets of the Global Goal:

6.1 – Provide safe and affordable drinking water

- - - Improve access to safe water

6.3 – Improve the quality, treatment, and reuse of water

- - - Reduce pollution
    - Eliminate dumping waste
    - Minimize the release of chemicals into the water
    - Increase recycling of water

6.4 – Increase efficiency and supplies

- - - Ensure sustainable withdrawals of water
    - Address the scarcity of water in some countries

6.5 – Water resource management

- - - Managing water sources and keeping them clean and healthy

My partners, Alyssa Thompson, Erin Singleton, and Anna Cheng, and I came up with the “Every Drop Challenge” in which 2 people see how well they can hold around 40 pounds of water, just like many in Africa, who have to carry this for more 4 miles at a time. We hope that this has potential to go viral with the hashtag #EveryDropMatters. We also challenged our audience to participate without wasting any clean water and donating to respective water donation companies!

Even though this video was produced in just a few days time, we hope this will inspire marketing campaigns for GatherIQ at SAS. I feel extremely fortunate to be a part of a process that could change people’s lives around the world!

SAS Day 4

My fourth day at SAS started out in a new building–building R. Friday and Monday (days 4 and 5) are dedicated to working with the Gather IQ team, rather than shadowing a department at SAS. We will begin shadowing the business ops department next Tuesday. Today, however, was a good change in pace. Saavan and I had spent the last 3 days being rushed from meeting to meeting and learning so much about finance so quickly. The morning started in a conference room. The design team for SAS’s Gather IQ app talked to us about the design process and the testing and usability part of it. After this, we had the opportunity to test the software. Gather IQ allows users to watch videos, read articles, and take quizzes about global issues like hunger or clean water. Gather IQ is basically the BuzzFeed of education. The 10 of us split into 3 groups and worked through tasks to help guide us in testing the software. We then filled out surveys to give the team feedback about how we thought the software worked. Overall, I was very impressed with it. There were a few kinks that we discussed, however in general the app is very useful and well designed. Later, it was time for lunch. It was my first time eating lunch in building R but I found the food quite good–especially the parmesan garlic knots.

After lunch, we began working on a video project. Our task is to come up with a video that raises awareness about the global issue of clean water. We also have to come up with a marketing plan and a call to action. We, therefore, spent the rest of the afternoon writing a script and will be filming and presenting the video on Monday.

Looking forward to another week at SAS.

Working to bring awareness to Global goal 6- clean water for everyone by 2030

day 3 at SAS

We started the day with a 10AM meeting in a conference room across the hall. It was a mock panel meeting with 3 interns who were chosen to work at SAS for that summer. They gave us advice on college, internships, and choosing a major. We then went to building C to grab lunch from the dining hall and head to a different conference room for a book club meeting. The book club is run by a few wonderful women at SAS who love to read and discuss what the book was about. We talked about the book The Only Woman in the Room. It was so cool to hear how passionate these women were about reading and the stories they choose to discuss. I was even able to offer my own book suggestion for future meetings. They asked us about what we’ve been reading lately and I told them about all the books I read about SNL while I was in New York. One woman told me that her close friend at SAS is best friends with a writer at SNL. She gave me his contact and I can’t wait to reach out to him and learn more about what he does! We then went over to building A and got insight on the marketing side of SAS.

conference room in Building A

Poke Bowl from the Building C cafe

Pauline Ashcraft (host for this week) and I in Building A before leaving for the day

an Amethyst from Dr. Goodnight’s extensive rock collection

Day 3 at SAS!

Day 3 was a lot of fun, as we explored building C and A!

At the start of the day, in building T, we met with some of the current computer science interns at SAS. They shared with us their experiences through high school and college and what led them to pursuing internships here. Each one of them had amazing stories to share and gave us wonderful advice about balancing careers, mental health, college classes, and everything in between. Two main takeaways from this experience were

1. Always take risks: Always go to the career fair, even if it’s fall of your freshman year. You never know what opportunities will arise and where they will take you! Experience everything, and this process is crucial in helping you find your passion.
2. Networking is key: Talk to and be friendly with as many people as you can on campus! You never know what experiences these people have and who they know. In the future, these people very well may play a huge part in setting you up with internships and even providing job opportunities.

Afterwards, we toured the 3rd newest building at SAS: Building C. This is where most of the customers will come and experience the executive business lounge. Floor 6 also holds Dr. Goodnight’s office, and it was really cool to be able to see that!

This building also holds one of the best cafeterias on campus. Niki and I took our lunches to go, shadowing Pauline in her book club, where we joined 6 other women in a glass conference room. The book they discussed was called “The Only Woman in the Room” by Marie Benedict, and I can’t wait to read this over the summer!

We then talked to Roger Lang, a Principal Sales Enablement Specialist for Risk in Building A, as he guided us through the newest building (Building A). This building is actually the tallest in Cary at 9 floors, and we learned that since it was so tall, the Cary firetrucks did not have a ladder to accommodate for this, so Dr. Goodnight bought a new one that works for them, just for this building!

Finally, we said goodbye to Pauline Ashcraft, our host and Senior Associate Business Operations Specialist. She was an amazing host and we learned so much from her this week. Thank you Pauline!

SAS Day 3

Today was our last day in the beautiful new Building A

My day started with another meeting. This time Saavan and I went to a meeting with Lisa Vulinec. In the meeting, Lisa met with people in HR and others in Finance. The meeting was centered around something called Headcount. Headcount is an area that overlaps HR and Finance. Headcount is basically determining how many people SAS employs and pays at any given time. Headcount is critical to finance because a company must know the number of people they are paying in order to properly account for their expenses as well as predict their expenses in the future. They showed us the software they use to count the number of people each manager is hiring in order to keep track of their incoming or outgoing employees and the expenses associated with them. They use a software called Workday to account for this. After this, we headed to the office of John Wilson. John was meeting with one of his colleagues in Mckinney Texas over Skype. During the meeting, John and his colleague discussed the changes that are happening in the finance division and steps they are working on to make sure these changes go over smoothly. After sitting in on this meeting, Saavan and I headed over to another meeting this time with Ashley Gatewood our original host. Ashley was meeting with Caroline, one of the summer interns. The finance division is switching over the software they use to process numbers and data. Ashley and Caroline discussed this during the meeting. They went over a powerpoint Caroline had been working on that simplifies how the changes are going to affect people throughout SAS. After this, another summer intern, Jaime, came in and discussed what she has been working on. Jaime has been working on organizing data in software called SAGA that they are going to use to train employees on how to use the new finance system. She has been working to make the online classes and help people acclimate to the changes.

After our morning full of meetings, it was time for lunch! We had lunch with 2 of the interns–Caroline, and Luke Wilson (a CA alum). Caroline goes to Wake Forest and Luke goes to UNC. We got to talk to them about a variety of things. Everything from what life is like in college, to how they’ve enjoyed working at SAS so far. But as lunch came to a close, it was time for our last two hours in the finance division, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about finance so far, its that they have a lot of meetings! Saavan and I sat in on another hour meeting during which people on Ashley’s team discussed training for SAS employees all over the world to help them become better acclimated to the new systems they’re planning to implement. Later, we spent our last hour in finance with two members of the Global Reporting and Analysis team, Lisa Vulinedec and Alex Harrill. Lisa and Alex talked to us about what got them interested in finance and their past experiences in the workforce and college.

I have learned a lot about finance in the past 3 days. Tomorrow, I will be working with the group of CA SAS interns on an app called Gather IQ, and after that, we will begin our shadowing in the Business Operations Department of SAS.

SAS Day 2

My second day at SAS started out with something very common in the corporate world– a staff meeting. Saavan and I sat in on the staff meeting of Lisa Vulinec. In the meeting sat Lisa’s team of around 6 employees and 4 interns. During the meeting, the team recapped a trip a few of them had been on to Vienna last week and then began to discuss various projects they are currently working on. The biggest project the team is working on right now is unifying SAS finance across the world into one efficient and effective system. They call this goal “One Finance. One SAS”. Interestingly, there are SAS offices across 60 countries around the world. Which means that the team at the Cary HQ is currently working to consolidate and unify all the finance people in SAS offices across the world. After the meeting, we were able to talk with Jim O’Brien and Heather who spoke to us about the way SAS consolidates all of their expense reports into an efficient system. They also talked to us about the technology used in finance today including a SAS designed financial software called FM (financial management). They also told us about the many different divisions under finance.

After that, it was time for lunch. We went to lunch in the SAS cafeteria with 4 college summer interns. 3 of them go to NC State while one of them goes to UNC. They began their internships in mid-May and will be working in finance the entire summer. We talked to them about a variety of topics, everything from what college is like, to what made them decide to major in finance. It was great to talk to them about their experiences especially because in only 4 years I will be where they are, having already selected a major in college, and almost ready to enter the workforce. After lunch, we got to learn more about the Tax and Treasury department in SAS. I talked to two Public accountants who work in the international tax field– Meg Deal and Adam Neal. They talked to me about the variety of things they do, including helping SAS employees all over the world file their tax returns and making sure SAS complies with all federal tax regulations. Meg and Adam also shared with me what lead them to be interested in accounting, and why they enjoy their jobs.

Finally, to close out the day, we met two more interns. We then had a round table discussion with the 2 interns and one of the interns we had met earlier at lunch. Mostly the discussion centered around college, and what lead them to decide to go into accounting and finance. Overall, it was a very informative day and I enjoyed learning more about finance at SAS.