Category: Uncategorized

Similar to our meeting yesterday morning with Mr. French, this morning we had the pleasure of doing a Q&A session with the Senior Vice President of FWV, Ms. Barrie Hancock. We asked her about the biggest challenges that come with her job, as well as, what accomplishments she is most proud of. She relayed to us the difficulties that come from”client service” work as the job is never truly “done”: there are always new projects. Evidently, this is a gift and curse in the marketing agency world because it causes stress but also lots of versatility. She also expressed that her favorite aspect of her job is getting to watch younger employees flourish under her and her coworkers’ mentorship.

A few weeks ago I visited a couple classes at Duke Divinity School. This was a really cool opportunity for me to get a better understanding of what some of the more intellectual parts of studying religion are. It was also really cool to hear from some very smart people teaching the classes like one professor who is a leader in the field of theological medical ethics. I also listened to a speaker who works to build and renovate affordable housing so and what makes his program special is that it is integrating the predominately black and poor homes into richer predominately white neighborhoods so that the families can have more equal opportunities. Overall seeing Duke’s divinity school was really impressive and listening to the classes was really exciting.

Travis, Miles, and I had the opportunity to sit in on a general assembly meeting that discussed three different bills that were presented to the Senators of North Carolina.

The first bill discussed the “300-foot rule” for all child sex offenders in North Carolina. It passed with all senators in agreement stating that no child sex offender may enter within 300 feet of an area directed towards children.

The second bill discussed property theft and what would be considered a misdemeanor or felony. It was passed with all the senators in agreement with two amendments adjusted and added.

Luckily for us, 45 minutes before the hearing an abortion bill was added to the meeting schedule. This bill discussed how a woman should not be able to terminate their pregnancy if the reasoning behind it is due to race, sex, or if the baby is to be born with down syndrome. We got to hear from multiple different guest speakers, two people with down syndrome as well as people who opposed the bill. It definitely made the experience more exciting, especially because one of the Senate members was not in favor of the bill and continued to ask questions making it get a little more heated than the past two bills. All in all the bill did pass this committee and will be moving on.

Afterward, we got to speak to Mrs. Jennifer Beddford, a woman on the Legislative committee about her job and how she ended up where she is today. It was a fascinating conversation and opened my eyes to different things that I may want to look into for my future.

Even though I wasn’t initially interested in political science, I enjoyed this experience very much and found a new interest of mine. I am thankful for Mr. Markham for making this possible as well as Mrs. Beddford’s time.

Today was another day filled with custody hearings, so things went more or less the same as the day before.

One difference, however, was one case I witnessed today involved all sides agreeing that the biological parents should regain custody of their children due to the many ways the parents have tried to change including taking drug screenings and doing therapy sessions to adapt to their lives are guardians of their children. This hearing taught me that even though some parents may initially make mistakes, the court allows many to have a second chance and that at the end of the day, the welfare of the child is prioritized by every party.

Yesterday I spent the day preparing for my pitch presentation. During our work experience, we were tasked with giving a pitch presentation about one of the different Cisco architectures. We were to act as if we were a sales rep for Cisco, and we were selling our chosen architecture to Cary Academy.

I chose Collaboration with a specific focus on Webex. I explained how we used a combination of Teams and Zoom, and it often time is confusing when and on what virtual platform we are using. I, then, went on to explain how using Cisco would simplify this process, and allow everything to be found in one place. I used a combination of personal stories and theoretical experiences if we had used Webex, to show the benefits of using Webex over Zoom/Teams.

The attached file is a copy of my PowerPoint that I used for my pitch.

CARY ACADEMY X CISCO COLLABORATION

-Grace

In the morning today, I had the pleasure of working with Mark Cain, a customer care representative for Lennar. His job is to teach future homeowners about all of the aspects of their new homes, which includes things as big as the HVAC unit, all the way down to the recommended cleaner for the countertops. While he was a very personable guy, he more importantly knew all of the finite details of the home, making it extremely easy for him to answer any of the clients questions. My task, while he was showing them around, was to mark any scratches on the walls with tape to make it easy for the repairmen when they come back for the final inspection. Ultimately, this home had only 5 major issues that needed to be addressed, which is generally quite low compared to an average house. Overall, very intriguing morning that taught me a lot, but also showed how difficult it can be to work in customer care.