Thursday, October 1, 2009

Midstream, Meeting the '11s and Rum & Diet Cokes

Drew and I are currently "stuck" in Washington D.C.; our flight from D.C. to Frankfurt was delayed about 4 hours. This isn't great, but it means, I'm going to post a blog update about the past 2 weeks. Lucky you!

It was really a whirlwind 2 weeks. The original purpose of the trip was our LGO Midstream Review. However, we also had a lot of Novartis things to do, including a 3 day trip to the site in Holly Springs, NC.

First, my time in Boston back at MIT.
The main event during midstream is the presentations that we give to our classmates, advisers and company representatives on the current status of our projects. The presentations are only 8 minutes long, but are followed by poster sessions during which we stand next to our pretty posters and try to sound smart as we answer questions about the work we are doing. I was kind of skeptical, honestly, but it turned out to be really great to share lessons learned and it was neat to hear about what others were doing, and of course, to hear about their fun adventures over the summer.

One of the best aspects of midstream is catching up with the rest of the Sloanies and getting to know the other LGO class. I was able to hang out with a lot of Sloanies when I went to the U2 concert with a lot of them, and, of course, at BHP. It was so nice to see everyone - it's like coming home. Also, one of the annual traditions of LGO is a 2-class camping trip the weekend after midstream. This. Rocked. (well, besides the freezing cold weather) It was great to get to know the new class outside of the confines of the Sloan walls and they are a lot of fun. I am guessing when the 10's return in the Spring we'll have a blast hanging out with them.

Finally, Novartis. Besides all of the crazy MIT sessions we had to attend during the week, the 4 of us at Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics (NVD) had a kinda big presentation to give to the NVD Operations Management Team. We presented from the Cambridge, MA office between 7 and 9 am so that our Europe managers could participate. It was a video conference between MA, NC, England, Germany and Italy. It was neat - yeah, I'm a dork. The second big NVD event was a trip to Holly Springs, NC. This was 2 days spent visiting the site, learning about the future plans and goals and meeting a lot of people that we'd interacted with on the phone. It was a terrific trip, and I can't emphasize enough how great NVD has been. They've really showed us all sides of the business and allowed us to integrate into the organization. It's pretty awesome.

Now, I know I didn't touch on the rum & diet cokes... but really, do I need to? The point is that in Europe coke is expensive and beer is pretty tasty. As a result, I was missing my all time favorite drink. So, I made sure to enjoy a few rum & diets while back in the US of A.

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