Tag: ReeseG- International Affairs

The last day at SAS was a sad moment. I will miss all the free food and all the interesting people I have met. One of the most interesting thing I did was from 1-3 I was with Elliot Inman who is a manager of the software development branch. I got to play with some SAS software to analyze and visualize data. It was cool that by hand working with this data will take you hours but with the software it took seconds. It was very insightful because now I know I never want to be a data scientist. 

The third day of SAS was different from the rest. The person I have been shadowing  was gone today. So instead I went with someone who works in HR. The interesting thing I did today was got to sit in on an Emerging Leaders meeting that our guy oversees. This program is for new and rising managers to learn more about their new responsibilities. Today this meeting they had a conversation with someone who was recently promoted to a much higher position. He discussed his new responsibilities and how he handled the rise up. It was a very insightful meeting.

Most of my day at SAS was the typical day. Sat in a lot of meetings and enjoyed the free food. The moment at SAS I enjoyed the most was when I sat in on I-Sah giving a presentation on GatherIQ to all the interns. The day before me and the other intern brainstormed and came up with ideas for this GatherIQ app. And today during his presentation he presented our idea to the crowd of people. It was a very nice moment knowing I helped contribute to something at SAS. Also at the end of the day I visited the 6th floor and saw Dr. Goodnight’s rock collection.

This week I changed jobs and started working at SAS. It was a big change from working at the General Assembly. The most interesting part of the day was what we did after lunch.  I-Sah (the person I’m working with) the other intern, and I started talking about how to effectively rebrand SAS’s GatherIQ for the young generation. We brainstormed and talked for about 2 hours coming up with many ideas.

Today was one of the more interesting days. Throughout the day the reps were in session debating and voting on bills. It was cool to see the actual process behind the whole policy making. There were only really 2 highly controversial bills that the Reps. spent a lot of time on debating. 

My day consisted of mostly just watching the appropriation committee meeting. which lasted the entire day. During the second half of the day nothing much happened in this meeting, the different chairs of the different committees were explaining their part of the proposed budget. Lunch was fun, a local lobbying firm held a lunch social for the members of the house and senate. It wasn’t until after lunch where the meeting got more interesting. Now it was the time for Reps. to propose amendments to the budget. This was where most of the debate and questioning came into play.

Getting to the Legislative Office in Downtown Raleigh was a hassle. I was held up in the Human Recourse office because I technically wasn’t supposed to work there without the proper orientation. After 20 minutes of waiting I was sent to find Rep. Fisher’s office. Navigating the maze like building I finally found the office. A somewhat small two roomed office. I got there and was introduced to Emily who is an actual intern working in the office. After waiting for a bit I met Ms. Garrison the Legislative Assistant, and then Rep. Fisher. After a bit I was ushered to the House floor for a session. I was recognized as a page and had to stand up in front of everyone, which was quite unnerving. It was a quick session lasting only 15 minutes. I was introduced to a hand full of other Representatives. Next was the democratic caucus meeting. The usual caucus meeting room was being used to hold protestor “Forward Together” about Medicaid expansion. The caucus lasted a long time and was interesting to see the behind the scenes of the policy making cycle. The next thing was another session meeting at 3 to debate bills.

Im excited