Roy Saikali
What a week!
After what seemed like a very short weekend, it was back to classes on Monday. Our Monday marketing class has been very interesting lately. Coming from a science-heavy background, I never realized how companies sell and promote their brand. Being able to have someone as experienced as Professor Michael Kitz teach us the fundamentals of technical marketing is a blessing. It’s particularly curious to see how fellow classmates react when another class member heavily critiques a brand they love (side note, some people really despise Nike).
On Tuesday, I had to give my technical presentation to a small group of classmates and our professor, Carolyn Langley. This is just a talk about your thesis, where you go into a little more detail on your project ranging from 6-8 minutes. At the end of your presentation, the professor and class give helpful tips on what to do to better present your information. For example, I was told that I said the word “invasive species” too quickly, which made the audience think I was saying something along the lines of “invashifpeces.”
On Thursday afternoon, the class drove down to the police station for our data analytics class to discuss our final project. We will be given data from South Bend’s data sheets to work with, which really puts our Data Analytics class into a real-life perspective. After the meeting, our class had an hour or so before we all met up for Mass at the Old Log Chapel. Although there were about 50 of us crammed into a chapel probably meant to hold 30 people comfortably, the service was quite pleasant (I found it wonderfully peculiar when Father Sean McGraw described Mary as a young entrepreneur). After Mass, we all hurried over to David Murphy’s house, where he and his family welcomed us into their home for a lovely dinner. After a busy evening, everyone started to head on to their apartments for bed… except for the ESTEEM intramural soccer team! Our lovely captain Michael Sedor, Mr. 500 hours of SolidWorks himself, had the innovative idea to play our soccer games at 11:30pm on Thursday. So after a night full of food, drinks and dessert, our team strapped on the cleats and went out and played (and won) a late night game.
On Saturday, Notre Dame hosted Duke for the third home game in a row. All I can is yikes. As the week came to a close, I was happy to relax and prepare for another week of intense work at ESTEEM.