Month: August 2016

With my internship starting at the SEC about three week ago, I have already learned so much, more than I could ever imagine in only three weeks without taking a conventional “blackboard” class. Based on what I have learned about financial markets in this short period of time, my expectations have already been far surpassed but that only means it is time to raise those expectations. Being that I am in a regulatory organization, I want to get a more in-depth knowledge of what an individual examiner looks for in every company that is examined. I want to be able to see what tips the examiner off on a breach of a regulation or possible fraud and high risk activity. Although I am in a government agency and focused on the regulatory side of the financial market, I would love to learn more about how the public market functions. I would like to walk away with a much deeper understanding of everything that goes into the running of Wall Street and how it has been able to be so successful and have so much history with only a few setbacks. Having been here for three weeks and being around students that are mostly in graduate school really has given me the most in-depth information I could imagine and I could not be more grateful for this opportunity. Furthermore, a little unrelated to the internship is that I can not wait to learn more about the greatest city in the world, next to Scranton of course! New York City is such an exciting place where you can truly never be bored and that is just one reason I am 100% willing to head to the city every morning around 5:00AM and not get back home until about 8:00PM. They may be long days, but the amount of fun I have and the amount of knowledge I have gained and will gain is priceless.

Dan Muenkel
Accounting/Finance

When starting the Royal Experience I was very much looking forward to really gaining the skills needed to immerse myself in the culinary world. This included the nutrition of food, kitchen techniques, the preparation of different foods and being able to create my own recipes to share with others. I am taking classes in cooking and baking, I am visiting locations to talk and gain real world insight. I am reading books on both food and business methods and seeing how other woman entrepreneurships found their start. I am cooking my way through a cookbook cover to cover in order to try different foods and learn new styles. This internship also allows me to interact with the clients of Weight Watchers and really understand what people want when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. I want to learn how to take those “comfort style foods” and transform them to taste great and be great for you as well.

I designed this internship experience to not only help me better understand the art of cooking, but to also gain knowledge on the business aspect as well. My major is entrepreneurship, and I intend to use these skills to help open my own business in the future. I am creating a nonprofit healthy living café, that will include healthier food options, allow my customers to find fitness and relaxation through yoga and the proceeds will be given to help feed those around the world who cannot afford to; food for food.
 

Going into my internship with the Mayor’s Internship Program of Philadelphia, I initially wanted to learn specifics about database management and data analysis. I have been assigned to work in the Depart of Records where I thought I’d have a great opportunity to learn about real world applications to my major Electronic Commerce, and my minor Operations Management. While I am very happy with the major I chose, I am unsure of what exactly I want to do with it upon graduation. I hope that this internship will help me get a better idea of what I would like to do for my career.

However after working for just two weeks, I discovered there was far more I could learn than just specific computer related information. Within the first day of my internship I was able to not only meet the mayor of Philadelphia, but several other interns from many different schools. I have always thought I was good at communicating with people, but this internship showed me there is still much more I need to learn. Every Friday is reserved for a group project where we are assigned a task to improve a department of the city. This project was much different from projects I have worked on in school because upon completion it will be a tangible product that the City Government will hopefully use. The first meeting our group had, I was a little nervous because my group consisted of students from Harvard and Penn. I felt that the way I talk and manage myself was going to be slightly different from them, and I would have to adjust accordingly. However by the second meeting we were all communicating great and I genuinely enjoy working with them. I hope this internship will allow me to learn more about specifics in my major, communication skills, and networking with employees from different departments.

Protestors of the Philadelphia Soda Tax at City Hall

One of the earliest maps of Philadelphia, found in City Archives

As an Undergraduate Research Assistant at Miami University of Ohio for the summer of 2016, I will not only learn the theory behind advanced organic synthesis reactions toward the production of dendrimers, highly branched molecules with many technological, medical, and industrial uses, but also how to carry out these reactions on my own using various state-of-the-art chemical equipment. While I will work on my own specific reactions in the lab, I will also learn how to work efficiently in a lab research group, in which I will update my mentor and other coworkers on my research, progress, and results every week in a lab group meeting. Toward the end of the program, I will learn how to structure my results into a form fit for publishing in a well-known chemical journal that can not only be used by other chemists, but also understood by the public. The 20 other students in my undergraduate research program will expose me to cultures, viewpoints, and attitudes that I have never experienced before, and help me to develop into a more educated, confident, and well-defined version of myself. My current career path of industrial chemical research involves studying and analyzing problems, coming up with strategies to solve those problems, and adequately expressing the results to others in ways that they can understand, and this program serves as a trial run to my future.

Alex Gardner
Chemistry/Philosphy