Finance – Page 2 – CA Work Experience Program

SAS Day 1

I always knew that SAS was right next to Cary Academy, but until today I had no idea that just beyond the tennis courts of CA lies 10+ buildings and a world of innovation. Upon arriving to the SAS campus, we were greeted by Christine Dougherty, who works in talent acquisition and university recruitment. Christine gave us a presentation about what SAS does and the core values of the company. She told us about how SAS software is used across the globe. I was surprised to learn about the vast number of ways in which SAS software can be used–everything from retail to cancer treatment to stopping terrorism. She told us about the great corporate culture at SAS and the many benefits of working at the company. After the presentation, we headed downstairs to the cafeteria. The SAS cafeteria had tons of options that were all very good.

After lunch, we began our shadowing. I started off in the finance department shadowing Ashley Gatewood. Ashley is the Change Management Program director in the finance division. Then we met Lisa Vulinec who is the Corporate Finance Manager. Lisa and Ashley gave us an overview of what the finance department at SAS does. They talked about the vision and goals of the company and how they work to fulfill that in finance. They also emphasized the way in which they are currently working to globalize finance at SAS and make it more globally efficient and effective throughout SAS offices around the world. Ashley then gave us a quick tour of the finance floor. It was interesting to see the amount of large open spaces dedicated to collaboration between employees.

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 Work Experience Day 8

Today was my final day at SAS for the work experience program. The first half of the day was spent finishing up in the finance department, learning about FM – Financial Management program, accounting, and getting a nice wrap up of the program by meeting a few more employees in different roles and getting some new information and words of wisdom from them.

Building T

After finishing up in finance, all of the CA students met at Building Q for a pizza lunch. We discussed our experiences from the week and filled out a quick survey. Four SAS employees from various departments came in for a panel where Kayla asked them some questions about their careers and how they’ve gotten to where they are today. It was interesting and extremely helpful to hear about their college experiences and their career paths, and we received a lot of invaluable advice for our futures. I thought this was the perfect way to wrap up our time at SAS, and I leave feeling very glad that I not only got to learn in depth about certain areas of business, but to learn about what an amazing company SAS is!!!

SAS Work Experience Day 7

My 7th day at SAS was my 2nd day shadowing in the finance department in Building T. Today I got to meet a few different people and learn what they all do within their specific jobs. Some areas I had the chance to learn about were budgeting and forecasting, internal audit and intercompany. It was very interesting getting an overview of many different tasks and roles within finance and learning the paths many different SAS employees have taken to get where they are today. Also, in the morning we got to sit in on a staff meeting where many of the people we’d met came together, which was also interesting since we got to see how the different roles interact and are relevant to one another, and how no one at SAS is totally isolated in their work since it is for a broader and more meaningful purpose.

Below is a picture of Building T, where I spent the day:

SAS Work Experience Day 6

Today at SAS was my first day shadowing in finance. I got to meet a lot of people in the finance department who are involved in a variety of different tasks and areas such as tax, global finance, marketing, etc. We started off with an introduction and overview of the department, which set down a good base for the shadowing activity which followed, where we sat in on a meeting discussing some financial issues related to marketing. We also got to learn about some specific roles in the department, by learning in depth about the treasury and about tax. At the end of the day a few college students interning in the finance department took us to get ice cream, which was nice. Below is a picture of Building T, where the finance department is. It’s a very fancy building!!

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.