Day 7

Day 7: Rehab Bars

Once again, we had many of the same patients today. With some of the patients, we used the rehab bars in the clinic. Typically, we use the rehab bars when working on balance exercises with the patients, and sometimes with strengthening exercises, so that patients have something to hold on to if they lose their balance. Jeffrey had a patient today that did calf raises, leg swings with weights, toe raises, and other balance work in the bars. One of the balancing exercises Jeffrey had the patient do was to stand with one foot on a less stable blue disk-shaped ball and with one foot on the ground in a sort of stagger stance. Jeffrey then held a soccer ball out at different places for the patient to reach out to and try to touch. This challenged that patient’s balance and gets the ankle working, trying to compensate for all the movement and wobbling that occurs while trying to maintain balance. Next to the bars are a lot of equipment that we tend to use with patients (depending on what they need). We keep balls, like the soccer ball Jeffrey used, on the racks there and we keep balancing tools, like the disk-shaped ball, the foam board and the bosu ball in that corner as well. Typically, we also have patients stretch their calves in the bars as well using the board seen to the left of the rehab bars in the picture below.

Day 7 – Diversity!

You might be curious about the title of this blog post, and I’ll get to that right now. Today was full of conversations with people from incredibly different departments, positions, and roles in the organization. This diversity is especially highlighted by the fact that we have mostly been talking to people in the CTID department, and we barely crossed paths with these people today!

We started off with Todd Bachman and Vanessa Cooke, who are in charge of Procurement Administration. Essentially, they work with FHI 360 after they have been approved to do research to make sure that they have the materials necessary. It seemed to me that their job was an interesting mixture of accounting, networking, and business. They also brought us some items from many different companies, such as tiny cars and yo-yos, which we played with for the rest of the day.

After a very short lunch break of half an hour, we met with Hannah Goetz, who went to Cary Academy and is now interning at CTID. This was an incredibly interesting conversation because her knowledge of Cary Academy gave her a unique perspective and allowed us to make the conversation more specific to us. Her talk about her experience taught me how crucial it is to step out of your comfort zone and interact with those around you, especially in college.

Next, Anna Lawton, who works with BECS, came and talked to us about human-centered design. She described the idea behind her research as “soft science;” essentially, while “hard science” is quantitative and based off of hard facts, her type of research is based off of interviews and other qualitative information. She talked about a trip she took and the research she did there, including individual interviews and group interviews. This was a really interesting new side to research that I had never really considered.

Lastly, Margaret Groves, the Director of Regulatory Affairs, came and discussed her career and the regulatory affairs department. Essentially, this was the legal side to research, which requires making sure that all of the research is following protocol so that it can be utilized when it is finished. The most interesting part of this conversation was when we talked about how, when you are doing research in multiple countries (which is done a LOT at FHI 360), you typically go by the most stringent research regulations so that you can publish your information everywhere. I had never really thought about all the consideration that went into research, so this was very interesting.

Overall, a great day! We talked to a bunch of amazing and passionate people, finished all of our projects (!!), and ate some delicious burgers. I can’t complain!

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.

Not too much to report today. A hip hop artist came in at 11:30 and Right away Mr. Hodgen started to mix his music. He is a very relaxed client and is very willing to listen to any suggestions that Mr. Hodgen has about what to add into his music or take away. While taking his music seriously, he still keeps an open mind and is aware that he should respect the opinion of someone who has been editing this stuff for many years. Also, because I was previously taught how to wind the tape and record on it, I was able to assist when it came time to record his tracks. I would make sure that there was enough tape on the track and then record it for them.

Day 7- Diversity and Inclusion

Megan and I once again traveled to Q Building to met with Katie Henry, an HR rep for the Research and Development Division of SAS. Her job was to promote synergy between managers/workers in different departments. Getting people to work towards the same goal was her primary focus, but also walked us through the process of letting people go. After that uplifting conversation, we reunited with Kristine Stewart who we had lunch with the day before. Kristine headed the Intern Program at SAS, and together we evaluated a variety of resumes. This helped us get a grasp on what exactly SAS looks for in it’s employees and what we should be prioritizing as students and applicants.

It was then we headed to lunch, where we had the pleasure to talk with some NC State Professors of HR and a larger group of their former students. We discussed everything from some new developments they were bringing to their classes, and the state of HR both at NC State and SAS. Lastly, we met with the SAS equivalent of Jason Franklin: Danielle Pavliv. As head of Diversity and Inclusion, she was in charge of promoting the best possible environment for all employees. Currently, she is working on a project to help interns that identify as on the autism spectrum. This led into a meeting with Kristine and Kayla, where we discussed how to improve the mentoring program for summer interns.

~Kevin Lou Chen

Final Day

Today I wasn’t scheduled for an internship so I went to the Raleigh School where I interned during the year a little to help out. She is about to start teaching summer camps so I was helping prepare for those. I helped cut paper, put up tape borders for murals, prep some clay, and prepare some paint. It wasn’t the most challenging work but it was very helpful for her which was nice. Then at 2 Ms. Gucciardi from Dragonwing had a call to discuss Facebook ads. She gave me editing permission and it was so cool to see the Business Manager side of Facebook and all the trends it tracks. It has so many graphs about gender, time, type of post etc. When it comes to specific ads you can track how many views, how many clicks, how much money you make and lost. Also it was cool to learn that you can schedule when to posts and due to the trends you can find out the ideal time to post. For the rest of the day I am going to be making more ads for Facebook and Instagram and figuring out which ones are the best. I never knew how much and how many tiny little details went into setting up and launching a promotion. It was great opportunity and I think I’ve built a long lasting professional relationship.

Day Seven – 6/6

Today we began the morning with another statistics lesson! We finally made it through! Dr. Laber started the beginning of our work experience with a long presentation ready to divide throughout all of our mornings with him, and this morning we finished all of the mathematical computational lessons and it began to come together a little bit. In all honesty, I know I did not absorb the information maybe in the manner that Dr. Laber expected us to, however I’m glad I was exposed to such things in statistics, as I had no idea half of those mathematical terms even existed. After this, we headed back over to the BOM where we continued helping create game board configurations for BoreDoom. We created 10 more boards, stopping for lunch at Smashed Waffles halfway through. In total, we managed to create 22 total BoreDoom board configurations with different setups and ways to solve them. At the start, Luke and I thought it would be extremely complicated to figure out, however we got the hang of the seemingly hundreds of rules of the game and got into a pattern with the quickest way to get through lots of boards and ways to make levels “harder” or more complicated. After completing all the board game configurations for the day, we were tasked with creating an algorithm in which could be coded into a computer (however our job was to write it out in human language), which would apply to any game board of BoreDoom it is assigned and successfully solve that level getting from the start point to the end point. Through a series of tasks such as calculating the numbers of moves it takes to win the game, and finding the “optimal” (we had to define optimal) pathway to the final destination, we roughly got somewhere which we felt like was not entirely right but much further along than it was when we started! After some delicious waffles, finding some fun graffiti in the Freedom Expression Tunnel, and creating an algorithm, it was time to go home.

Day 7

Today, we worked out of his house again. He gave us a presentation on his company and the process that they use when helping patients. I then continued my statistical analysis of a lot of data. I specifically focused on a certain gene to see how it effects certain bodily functions. I compiled all of this and sent it to him. I also took all of the data and put it into a program that would determine mathematical equations that would possibly relate different variables. I found a few correlations. Tomorrow I will continue my work into researching the gene.

Day 7 – Helping out around campus

In our second day of searching it didn’t take us long to find the tablet we were looking for and once we found it, we celebrated. With that task out of the way I helped students and teachers alike resolve their computer problems if they bought or still had their computers. While helping out one of the major perks was that i had the opportunity to try out the new computers for next year. With a host of computer savvy people around me i had a great chance to talk about all the aspects of the computer and some of its amenities (of which there are many). A highlight ,however, was that I got to use a floppy disk and see how it works which was quite interesting. Overall a good day of helping out around the school and using some cool tech.

Day 7: Regular Regulatory Stuff

Yesterday, we got to meet with a completely different side of public health. Behind-the-scenes departments like procurement and regulation came to talk to us about how they help FHI 360 achieve its goals and run smoothly. Since, I’m interested in health policy, I was very interested in what the regulators had to say about the balance between under-regulated markets and dangerous drugs, and over-regulated markets and expensive drugs. The general consensus was that it was a hard balance and that there were instances of both, the health policy specialists will be changing in the coming years.

We also got to meet a leader in qualitative research, who talked to us about the interpersonal relationships that are critical to gaining the trust of research subjects. We also learned about the ethical challenges that face research with the advent of technology including things like “whether or not a digital signature can provide consent.”