The Legislature generally only works Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Thus, Thursdays are dubbed “Legislative Fridays” which makes today a legislative Saturday, and unless something is particularly pressing, legislative Saturdays are pretty slow.
Andrew L.
Here’s the view out the window of the third floor library in the Legislative Office.
Today was my final day in clinic with Dr. Schweitzer. It was a busy day as there were about 45 patients on the clinic schedule. Today there were many post-operation patients that we met with. It was very interesting to meet with patients that we had diagnosed in previous weeks. For example, last week we diagnosed a patient with an achilles rupture. There are two methods to diagnose an achilles rupture. The first is to feel for tension in the achilles (no tension= ruptured achilles). For the second method, the patients must be laying on their stomach with their feet in the air and the knee bent. Then, a doctor can squeeze the calf muscle. If the foot moves when the calf is squeezed, the achilles is still intact. If there is no movement in the foot then the achilles is ruptured. This patient had undergone surgery for the ruptured achilles and was returning to the clinic today for a post-operation appointment. It was very interesting to see the patient both before and after the surgery had occurred.
Today we skipped the Legislative Building and started with a meeting over lunch at Café Carolina in The Village. Our meeting was to discuss the same charter school bills as yesterday, but this time it was with two lawyers (and a few lobbyists from before). After getting a scrumptious tuna salad, Ms. DeVivo and I sat down with another lobbyist, though there was a last minute schedule change so we had a few minutes. We chatted for a few minutes, and it actually turned out that the lobbyist’s son played tennis with a graduating senior from CA! Pretty cool.
Anyways, the rest of our lunch entourage came in, ordered food, and got to discussing bills. Most of it was the lobbyists presenting the bills to the lawyers by explaining their clients problems and wishes, and then lawyers gave feedback on problematic language that would the legislation hard to get through the General Assembly.
Andrew L.
I didn’t get any new pictures today, so here is a short clip from yesterday of a protest outside the General Assembly on biomass emissions (featuring original song “Where’s Cooper?”).
Today was the last day of the Work Experience Program. Shortly after noon, Emily and I met again to combine what work we had done, and after some struggling, we managed to succeed and present the finished product to Dr. Aziz and Leah.
Our hope is that they will be able to use our version of the model, along with instructions Emily wrote, as an activity for their students. The main thing about this experience which sets it apart from others was how hands-off it was. We were mainly free to go our own way and learn at our own pace, with minimum input and flexible schedules..
Today was the last day of our work experience program and the first day we actually went to the office! Finding the building was a little bit tough but the experience was well worth-it. It was nice to meet Mr. Self in-person, and we even got to meet his dog (who is older than me)! I feel like the presentation itself went really well as we were able to tie everything back to our central claim and Mr. Self even said he could use some of our research in his future work. This was a great opportunity for me to experience what a job in “research” really involves, and I hope the skills I gained stay with me.
To celebrate the finish of our WEP, we decided on meeting up for lunch at an Asian bistro and sushi restaurant and It was fun to see everyone again and Greyson for the first time. As a bonus, I got some really good chicken fried rice.
Welcome back gang to the last day of the work experience! It’s been a wild ride. Really fun, too. But as all good things must come to an end given our linear understanding of time, so must the WEP end with it. And so here we are, on Sebastian Polge’s final Work Experience Program blog ever. So what did we do on this auspicious day?
Not much, actually. We went out to sushi and Spring Rolls. It was fun! I got the beef fried rice. Tasted good. It was wonderful actually meeting my host, Mr. Davis, and the rest of my peers in person though. We mostly just talked about college and plans for the future, along with some other more off-topic topics, but it was definitely enjoyable. Would do again.
Yesterday I spent my time working with my mentor going over my pitch presentation. Through this, I was able to improve my presentation before having to give it today. Also, some of us came onto campus and worked together in the library to work over our individual presentations and peer review. Unlike other days there were no other meetings that we had to attend, so we could use all of our time to practice our presentation.
Today was the day of the actual presentation, and each of us talked about our different topics, with me choosing to talk about Cisco Meraki. In my actual presentation, I went through the reasons why Meraki was better than other type of products that are similar to it, as well as explain the Camera aspect of Meraki. Other people did their presentations about other Cisco products, such as Cisco Duo and Cisco WebEx.
Here is a screenshot of the first slide in my presentation
~Mark
To start quite a busy day, we met with Liz Fischer, who we will get to visit next week. She touched on how she and her husband, Ben Fischer, understand the difficulties around the continuously rising cost of medicine for many patients, and how they try to combat that. After this, I, unfortunately, was unable to meet with Dr. Limkakeng but could make it to the meeting with Josh Waynick, a physician’s assistant. It was truly fascinating to see how connected a physician’s assistant is with other people. Lastly, Dr. Lawal spoke on heartburn. Having had heartburn in the past, I was intrigued to learn that there are many different ways to decrease the risk of getting heartburn, such as not eating too close to when you fall asleep, and managing your meals better. Hearing this from a certified gastroenterologist has really made me consider changing my habits to eliminate future diseases/problems.
Today for my last day I made sure to say goodbye to all my favorite people. I had so much fun and learned a lot about the legal system from the point of view of a public defender. I enjoyed watching all the different types of courts but ultimately criminal court was so interesting. A common misconception is public defenders put criminals back on the street, but that is not true. Through the hard work of the defense, the prosecutors, and the judge justice is served (most of the time). I cannot wait to return!!!!