Week 8: Nearing the End

It is crazy that I only have two weeks left at Addison Whitney this summer! As I’ve said before, it’s truly a bittersweet feeling.

I’ve learned an unbelievable amount about the branding world in my time at AW and I hope to squeeze in as much learning as possible with my short time left. The training manual I mentioned a few posts ago has been practically used for everything now. One of the main things I hadn’t done yet was SPSS data processing, something I was extremely interested in learning and practicing. And, I finally got to do it last week! Being a Psychology major, I used SPSS almost daily for my two Research Methods classes. And so I was curious to see how much psychology SPSS data processing would be from market research SPSS data processing. While I didn’t get the full spiel on SPSS last week because my supervisor was on vacation and I was working alone based on the manual, it was still great exposure and I got to see some differences. I am looking forward to (hopefully) practicing more and finishing up what I am learning about it!

I’ve also mentioned the Public Speaking Series in a blog post before, and this past week was finally my turn to present a speech. It was terrifying. But I made it through! I had my speech all planned out, I wrote it down and practiced it the night before, and then made notecards with bullet points to hold during the presentation. I felt so prepared, but then I completely lost my train of thought during the speech and got way nervous! I was already nervous because I am not a big fan of public speaking in general, and I was giving a speech to a room full of seasoned employees. And even though I messed up big time, some of the employees still gave me the sweetest compliments. I continue to be surprised by how great the people are in this office.

One highlight from my week was closing one of my projects in the field. As I mentioned before, I have to two projects that are entirely my own and it’s been pretty great knowing I’m managing something important. One of them closed in the field this week, meaning all the data had come in and was ready to be processed and analyzed. Now, I get to finalize all the data and compile a presentation for it. Although that may not sound like many people’s idea of a highlight of the week, it was for me! It’s just a rewarding and awesome feeling knowing that I’ve been able to put what I’ve learned to the test by managing a project.