More intern program behind-the-scenes: The first cut

The selection committee made its first round selections, so on Tuesday I sent out all the notifications to intern applicants of their status. Out of 90 applicants, 24 were chosen to come in and interview (plus a few from outside Rochester, but they are handled differently - more on that later). Selected interns are asked to respond with their preferred interview dates between April 8 and 11, and the labs they are most interested in. I then take all of these responses and try to fit all 24 applicants into a complicated matrix that represents all 6 labs across all 4 days at both interview time slots. Interviews are assigned at a first-come, first-served basis, but I do my best to get the candidates in with their preferred labs. It's definitely not easy to try to get everything massaged into the best possible placement while keeping all the variables organized and correctly prioritized. So far this year seems to be a little harder than last year, too; hopefully the candidates will be pleased well enough with their interview placements. Individual interview schedules will then be e-mailed to each candidate. If any candidates miss their deadlines or decline their opportunity to interview, then we start pulling from the alternates.

Meanwhile I am still running around making absolutely sure there are people available from each of the labs to actually perform these interviews! You would think that would have been straightforward, predictable, and already figured out by now - but how often is that really the case on a college campus? Trying to organize this many professors who all have their own schedules and other priorities... well, let's just say it's complicated.

In addition to all of this, I have several applicants from out of state whom we will interview separately from the local candidates, though all interviews must take place before the draft on April 12. Most of these applicants will interview by phone, so I have to figure out who from the labs they prefer can be available at additional times outside of the 1 hour - 4 days in a row, that can be scheduled consecutively, that will work with the applicants' schedules. YIKES. On top of that, one of the out-of-state applicants has asked to interview in person, so I will have to not only try to schedule in-person interviews, but also additional activities to help make his long drive worth it. This is a lot of extra work for me, but I can handle it. However, I feel really badly that professors are already having to take so much time to meet with local candidates, and now they are also being asked to devote additional time on top of what they originally agreed to on somewhat short notice. Because of all the extra complicating factors and additional manpower that is going into these out-of-area applicants, we will have to reconsider how many (if any) applicants from outside the greater Rochester area we will consider next year. In past years when we have had no more than one, it was not a big deal, but the increased volume this year has really tested the limits of this intern program.

I thought I was the Big Shot around here.

I have just returned from the first official CIS participation in the RIT Big Shot! For those who are unfamiliar, each year the RIT School of Photographic Arts and Sciences coordinates and produces a long-exposure photograph whose only source of illumination is handheld light (flashlights, camera flashes, etc.) provided by volunteers. The process is called "painting with light", since volunteers move their lights around like paintbrushes to illuminate the whole object evenly over the length of the exposure. The resulting photo is striking and rather eerie, and achieves and effect otherwise not possible at night or with a typical long exposure. You can view a few past examples and read more of the history here.

Although the Center for Imaging Science (now housed in the College of Science) grew out of the school of Graphic Arts and Photography (now Photographic Arts and Sciences) way back when, there has never been an "official" CIS component to the annual Big Shot tradition. Various CIS'ers have participated as volunteers, sure; but the show really belongs to CIAS. This year, it was decided to get more involved - and so CIS was going to add a 3-D reconstruction to the Big Shot repertoire, something that (to our knowledge) had never been attempted before. And what a year to do it, as Big Shot #28 was to be of the biggest subject yet attempted by RIT: Cowboys Stadium!!

I first heard about this a few months ago when I was asked whether I thought there would be value in going for outreach purposes. There was the potential for interaction with high schools, presenting to a photo society filled with high school-age photographers, and other various avenues to reach out to prospective students in an area not very familiar with RIT. Besides, there is always a huge media machine surrounding the Big Shot, especially for #28 since it was to be in an unfamiliar area yet would require the greatest number of volunteers so far. With all this press for photography at RIT, we could hope to attract those science and math-minded photogs through the Imaging Science 3-D component. That sounded good to me, and hey it was worth a try (it was about time, in fact), so I was on board.

So, how did it turn out? Well, I have to say I have mixed feelings about my personal participation. I flew down last Thursday morning, in preparation for a seminar to be given to high school students. The presentation was to consist of history and information about the Big Shot, with a brief introduction to the 3-D reconstruction theory and an even briefer introduction to CIS. I must admit, I was hoping for a little more stage time than that, but it didn't matter anyways. Why? Because nobody. showed. up. Nobody. Letters were sent out to 150 schools. Arlington Camera (a store that apparently has a lot of pull in the area schools) also had an announcement to help promote the talk. Plus whatever other media whirlwind the organizers had going on.... Nobody showed. Wow. This was a major blow to me, as this seminar seemed like the most relevant event for me to be there for. This was the only educational component that ended up materializing, out of all the outreach I was hoping for, and even it didn't actually materialize. (Maybe because it was buried in an auditorium that was difficult to find on a college campus within what seemed to be their athletic center? But that's besides the point.) At this point I started to feel an overwhelming sense of guilt - why was I there? What useful function would I be serving? I couldn't help feeling like I was going to result in a disappointing return on investment, and I started blaming myself. Maybe I should have looked up some schools to try to visit on my own (though getting into schools is hard enough to do around here with schools I actually have a relationship with). Maybe I should have tried to help with the organization and promotion of the talk (though I have no idea how I could have done that - but maybe if I pushed the organizers harder?).

At this low point, I decided it would be my role to promote the heck out of CIS's participation in the Big Shot. The remainder of my week/end was to be spent following the 360 Team (as the 3D CIS folks dubbed themselves) around and documenting their every relevant move. The CIS Twitter and Facebook were going to see a rate of updates unlike any they had ever experienced. Anybody who cared to follow would get a detailed play-by-play as if they were there and part of the action. And that is what I, Senior Associate of Outreach and Communications, was going to bring to the table. That's enough to make the expense of sending me to Texas all worth it.... Right....? :-\

You never would have known no one was at our talk. Unlike my brutally honest blog, I make sure to only highlight the positive when I'm posing as CIS online.

And the Tweeting frenzy begins.

Friday was basically a free day (thus intensifying my guilt even more), though I had been told we were invited to tour Cowboys Stadium in the afternoon along with the RIT CIAS crew that was arriving that morning. Matt and I (oh yeah, did I mention Matt was there too? He tagged along- on our own dime, for the record) went off and did our own thing, but around 4:30 I cleverly posted a status about being a part of the tour, since I assumed the rest of the 360 team did go....

The infamous update... You'll see why.

6:30PM rolls around and there is a "planning dinner" scheduled that we were definitely supposed to be a part of, so we rendezvous there but no one had shown up yet. A bus-load of who was obviously RIT art students (no, I'm not reinforcing stereotypes... they were all wearing matching shirts) started spilling in, but I still didn't see my fellow CIS'ers. Eventually they showed, and the first thing I hear is, "Well, we hope you enjoyed the stadium!" To which I scoffed because I didn't want to go, anyways. Turns out they saw the status update and thought that Matt and I were there (a-ha! My plan worked!) - and they were jealous because they were told that they were not actually allowed to go due to space constraints, and they were wondering how I weaseled my way in. Now, this story is different depending on who tells it, and I have no idea what the real story is since I was not a part of it nor was I very privy to any of the organization - I am only repeating what I heard. But that was pretty awkward. Are we welcomed to be a part of this, or not? I already felt like enough of an outsider, since my role had been reduced to following the 360 team around; but now they were feeling like outsiders, too. Were we even supposed to be at this dinner? Jury's still out on that one, since it did turn out there weren't enough seats for everyone...

Anyways, at this dinner they had something like 50 or 100 or what seemed like an endless stack of posters, which we were supposed to each sign and pass along assembly line-style so that at the end of the Big Shot we'd all receive a souvenir poster with everyone's signature on it. This made me feel like even more of an outsider - nobody knows who I am, or why I'm there, and why would they care about my signature? I'm not a part of their crew... I can only imagine how Matt felt. We started out each only signing every other one and using the name "Mathany" to encompass us both - who would know the difference, anyways - and that way we each only had to do half as much work. The exercise was tedious, and the insignificance of our participation did not escape us, so our signatures dwindled down to instead saying "That Guy", and then eventually to nothing as we stopped signing altogether. So if you happen to see one of these posters and wonder who "Mathany" or "That Guy" was, the secret's out. I can tell you, though, one place you will not be seeing one of those posters is in my office. I never ended up receiving one. Guess that serves me right.

At any rate, the dinner was delicious, and the venue was interesting and seemingly authentic. There was a cowboy band that would play at regular intervals, and people would go out on the dance floor. The Big Shot crew of course took advantage of this many times, and also made sure to publicly embarrass various CIAS heavy-hitters as often as possible. They also snagged the microphone at one point to promote the Big Shot and encourage everyone to come out the next day. (I don't think the wedding reception also present was very happy about having to share the spotlight.) Meanwhile, Carl went down a slide.

On top of feeling like a loser outsider, I was disconnected from pretty much everything as I was trying to keep the tweets coming and also to get the video of Carl on the slide posted to the Facebook page (which you would think would be easy, but it's not. How many Imaging Scientists does it take....). I found a respite from my discomfort in that the 360 team was peacing out to go do a final nighttime test shot, so obviously I had to go with them to document this on social media. However, I was presented with a new discomfort in that, despite being in Texas, it was only like 45º and none of us had brought appropriate clothing for the surprisingly chilly weather. Not only that, but I didn't have a whole lot to contribute besides the status updates, which was killing me inside because I wanted to be a more useful part of the team. I am an imaging scientist too, of course.... Sigh. Is this what it feels like to be a Roadie?

Saturday was to be the big day. There was some promo event in the morning at Arlington Camera, but although I was told about it I wasn't really invited... so I guess it was just a Big Shot show, and I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. In the afternoon I was slated to man a booth at the Art on the Greene festival, who had donated table space to us. The weather this day was particularly unattractive... Misty rain in the morning, chilly temperatures, and incessant wind to boot. Oh, and did I mention that Art on the Greene is an outdoor festival? Great...

At least our booth had a wind screen.

Throughout my 3 hour shift, I was only visited by a handful of people, and they weren't really that interested in hearing what I had to say about the Big Shot, much less RIT and even less so Imaging Science. Whenever I asked, "So, will we see you tonight?" every single person said no. Every. One. Excuses ranged from blaming the weather to saying they already had plans. We did at least get some attention from a well-intended, seemingly homeless guy who kept bringing various vendors from the food trucks over to the booth to tell them about how cool the Big Shot was; but they were all working the festival until 9PM so they couldn't come out to participate anyways (but they did keep offering us discounts on their food....). Adding to my frustration was the fact that a plea for help had been sent out to many people to volunteer for this event, and only three people (and that's including me) stepped up. So not only did we not have multiple people at the booth at once, we had to each take longer shifts. And the most miserable part of all was that it was SO COLD. Thank goodness there was a U2 cover band that seemed to play endlessly so that I could dance around in place to keep myself warm without looking totally insane. Meanwhile, could you really blame people for not wanting to come out for the festival (or the Big Shot that night, for that matter)?

At the conclusion of my shift, I went to rendezvous with the 360 team in case they needed anything. They didn't, so I took what spare time was left to go to a store and pick up some leggings to wear under my jeans and a blanket to snuggle in for later. After sitting out in the cold wind at the festival for three hours, I was chilled to the bone and didn't want to take any chances later when we were going to have to be outside again. I tried to also buy gloves (which seems so silly, coming from the cold white north... I should have brought some with me to begin with) but apparently no one in the entire state of Texas sells any (why would they need them?). We returned to Cowboys stadium with a bag stocked full of flashlights, blankets, cameras, and various gear (including a solar-charged battery that did indeed end up coming in handy when my phone started dying - Can't let the tweeting stop!!!!) and headed in for the Alumni Reception.

Welcome to the STAR CLUB

The Reception was pretty cool - we had the whole stadium to ourselves, and the main event was in the swanky "AT&T Star Club". I realize this is probably the only opportunity I will ever have to be in such a place, especially with no one else around, but... meh. I don't care about football in the least, so, this wasn't really my bag. (Apologies to all the football fans out there who are no doubt infuriated about my lack of appreciation.) The food was very, very excellent, though. To my knowledge there were no ImSci alumni there; in fact, the reception seemed to be mostly the groups who came down from RIT, with just a few TX alumni sprinkled here and there... So the 360 team sat at a table by ourselves in the back like the high school outcasts at lunch, and just like the night before I made my escape by joining them for early setup. However I again felt awkward as I did not have much to do, so I spent my time posting pictures and wandering around looking for something interesting to take pictures of. I spotted this guy walking in with a ridiculously over-the-top setup, so I followed him in to take his picture. Well, turns out he wasn't all set up yet, and since I was polite enough to ask if I could take his picture he roped me in to helping him get all his rigging together and equipment hooked up and on and on, which took upwards of 20 minutes or more. You're welcome... Finally, I snapped a picture -

What can I possibly even say about this.

- and although it was blurry, someone else started asking him about his setup so I had to seize my chance to skeedaddle out of there. At this point it wasn't long before the first shot was supposed to go off, so I headed over to, well somewhere; really I wandered around among the select 12 photographers helping out the 360 team like a lost puppy, in case someone wanted me. I settled near one who used to be an imsci student (hooray! someone I know!) and readied for the first shot. I already gave a pretty detailed play-by-play on Facebook/Twitter, so I won't bother repeating myself...

For complete coverage, visit https://www.facebook.com/RITimagingsci

During the first shot, I hid behind a transformer in the parking lot and took pictures backwards of the crowd painting the stadium with light. These pictures didn't come out that well, though, so for the remainder of the shots I joined the crowd and did my part to illuminate. This was a pretty funny experience - we had to wave our flashlights around while shuffling to the left throughout the duration of the exposure. It was a little disorganized, and not everyone was successful at waving their lights around randomly enough while avoiding the 360 team photographers in front of us and while shuffling, but whatever. There would be more chances to get it right, and in the digital age, there isn't really any possibility of failure...

During one of the shots, we left a camera standing to capture video of the stadium being painted with light - you can watch it here. (By the way, those 2-3 bright lights you see going perfectly vertically straight up and down the side of the stadium? Yeah, they're doing it wrong. Not to mention they kept going well after the "Lights off!" command was yelled several times...)

After 5 attempts, we were done! Or, at least, I was. The Big Shot team and 360 team all went to the Cowboys press room to scramble to get the images processed, while I went back to my hotel room to relax before catching my early morning flight home and to catch my breath after orchestrating the CIS social media frenzy. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but it was exhausting. And, a little annoying - I was so distracted by constantly having to take and post pictures and updates, and felt so frazzled having to constantly predict and think of what to post next, that I hardly felt like I got to experience and enjoy the whole event. Anybody reading my updates was experiencing it just as much as I was, regardless of their geographical location.

Anyways, let's cut to the chase: without further ado, here they are, Big Shot 2013 and its 3-D reconstruction!

Addendum (May 8, 2013): Check out this article by RIT News all about CIS's involvement in the Big Shot!

Intern Applications 2013: By the numbers

The deadlines have passed and all of the applications have been processed, so now it is time for a little data analysis on the 2013 intern pool!

• Total number of applicants: 90 (a 50% increase over average and a 91%! increase over last year, WHAT)
• 41% female / 59% male
• Total number of schools represented: 30
• School with the most applicants: Tie between Honeoye Falls-Lima and Rush Henrietta (both with 10 each)
• Number of represented schools outside greater Rochester area: 6 
• Geographically farthest school represented: Loudon School for the Gifted, Ashburn, VA (other out of state applicants include 2 from NJ, 1 from CT, 1 from VT)
• Most frequent first choice lab: visual perception, followed closely by ultrasound
• Most requested lab overall: visual perception, followed closely by astronomy

Check out last year's results for comparison.

All of the applications have been passed on to the selection committee, who definitely have their work cut out for them this year. I am hoping to get their feedback and notify applicants of their status early next week. Good luck to all the applicants!

NEW Undergraduate Imaging Science brochure!

After much time and effort, I have finished the new undergraduate brochure! (And just in time for next week's Big Shot - we will just barely have enough time to get these printed so we can take them with us.) I teased this quite a while ago back when I announced the release of our new digital information booklet, as the intention was to stop giving away the expensive, wasteful, and outdated booklets and instead hand out something inexpensive and to-the-point that would then direct people to the digital booklet. As is always the case with anything Imaging Science, it's difficult to be be concise, especially when downsizing from a 20-something page booklet to a brochure... but I tried my best by keeping text short and employing lots of exciting visuals. The theming of the brochure is similar to what has been handed out in the past: I still focused on 4 areas that make Imaging Science unique (high tech qualities, preparation, flexibility, community), and kept a similar bright color scheme to coordinate with postcards and folders that we will still distribute. I threw in some "fast facts" to cover anything that might have been left out by the 4 themes, and included a student story. All this information resulted in a 4-fold accordion brochure, which looks a little funny digitally, but you can use your imagination to picture what it will look like:

From L to R: back cover; back inside folds; front cover

Inside panels - this is exactly how the brochure looks when opened fully.

I'm pretty excited about the final design (hopefully you like them, too) and can't wait to see how they turn out! Enjoy :-)

Don't forget, it's almost Pi Day!

Sorry we missed both Phi and e days. Again. Maybe next year...

I'm 100% done with getting 65% finished.

I am FINALLY done with the initial processing of this year's pool of intern applicants - HOORAY. Well, that is, I was, before I sent out notifications to all of the interns who were missing pieces of their application. Now I am receiving all of those pieces and I have to search out their packets and get these items processed and added in, so that I can then deliver the whole shebang to to the selection committee. So, if any intern applicants are reading this, you can thank the 35+% of you that didn't have complete packages for the hold up. And yes, you read that right - more than 35% of the applicants had one or more required components missing from their application packages. Tsk tsk. Though in a majority of cases, the missing item was a first semester report card, which is a typical mistake. Many schools don't include mid-year grades on official transcripts, and many students don't realize this. However, that is why we put "including first semester of junior year" in bold underline on the transcript part of the application checklist.

If I were really strict, I would just throw out the incomplete applications - heck, doing so would pare down the pool nicely and leave us with total numbers that would be less overwhelming and more consistent with past years; and besides, it is the student's responsibility to make sure their application is complete, and you could consider this the first hurdle to being eligible. However, since I can't be totally certain where the breakdown happened (whether the student didn't ask for those grades, or whether whoever submitted their transcript left it out) I give the applicants the benefit of the doubt and give them another chance to get their grades in. If they aren't in by this Friday, well, then it's too bad for them.

I can see legitimate arguments either way on this, but fairness is a really difficult thing to pin down in this situation. In the end, not knowing 100% whether it's truly the student's fault or not, I would feel bad preventing their application from going to the selection committee. So, ultimately I think I'm doing the right thing. Unfortunately it holds up the whole process, and it creates a lot more work for me (sending out 34 personalized e-mails, and subsequently receiving 34 replies, as well as >30 report cards and recommendations, plus faxed and mailed duplicates of many of them, plus more worried phone calls from parents, plus follow up phone calls to confirm receipt.... is not helping my overall productivity). So once again, just when I thought I had my head above water, a new wave of materials comes crashing in and I'm buried under applications again...

So instead of just complaining, what am I going to do about it? Well, this summer I will definitely be devoting some of my resources to developing an electronic application system. It should make collection, tracking, and notifying significantly easier, and it should allow applicants to better keep track of their application packages. That makes it all sound lovely and easy and straightforward, but I bet it's going to be a lot more complicated than I think and we will probably have some issues to have to remedy when we try to employ it. Oh well, it's a process, and at least we'll finally be bringing our applications into the 21st century.

Anyways, once everything is finally and completely processed and on to the selection committee, I'll post my annual "by the numbers" data on this year's pool of applicants. Stay tuned!

The envelope, please.

No. I take that back. Please, no more envelopes. PLEASE. My hands are so dry, and so torn up with paper cuts. Next year I'm definitely taking this process digital. What process, you ask? Why, Summer Intern Applications!!!! It is now 2+ hours past the deadline, and I have some initial (unofficial) numbers.

# of applications received prior to Wednesday, 2/27: 11
# of applications received ON Wednesday, 2/27: 16
# of applications received on Thursday, 2/28: 20
# of applications received today, Friday, 3/1, the final day for submission: 42

FORTY TWO... that's right, forty two. This afternoon I was able to finish processing all of the applications received up until today. That total was 47. Now I have 42 more. Forty two! I think this must be a new record. It has to be, right? The unofficial total is 89 applications. I take that back - I have one more via e-mail that wasn't printed out yet, so not counted. So the grand total (unofficially) is 90. And just when I thought I was on top of it all, I now see that I am only half way there. I like being busy, but WHOA. It has taken over three days straight to get those 47 processed, and that was ignoring all of my other duties (sorry, everyone's e-mails I've been ignoring). Boy am I glad I timed the final week of submissions this year to correspond to RIT break week! Or am I?... some break. (Though I can't really complain, I did just spend all of the week before in Florida - in case you were wondering where I've been... (see my last post)) Now I start class again next week, AND I still have the rest of the applications to process. Next week is not going to be pretty.

But WAIT! The complaining doesn't stop there! (Sorry.) Can I just take a minute to express my frustration with people waiting until the absolute last minute to do things? I have included an incredibly painful to look at timeline graph below to demonstrate:

For additional consideration, please note the following milestones:
12/20/2012 - Applications Posted
1/3/2013 - Applications formally announced
2/1/2013 - First related material received (letter of recommendation)
2/5/2013 - YNN Feature airs
2/11/2013 - First application received

My point is, all of the data is AAALLLLL the way to the end on that graph. Save for a measly few materials received in a timely manner, most of the applications were concentrated on the last three days. Over all of the time leading up to Wednesday morning, only 12.5% of the eventual total number of applications had arrived. Wednesday accounted for 18%; Thursday,  22.5%; and Friday alone brought 47% of the total applications. Seriously? I mean, I know that's human nature, but.... come on. And it really gets ridiculous when I become bombarded all at once with phone calls, e-mails, and in-person visits. Yesterday I received three phone calls AT THE SAME TIME - no joke. And yet, applicants who just submitted want to know the status of their application, and students who "just found out about it" want to know if there's anything I can do for them. Yeah, right. (Sorry.) If you can't tell, I'm a little overwhelmed. Although, I guess it could be worse - I could be the selection committee, who, after my processing is eventually completed, will be receiving 90 applications all at once. (Seriously, this has to be a record - that's an increase of 50% over our normal totals.) ...Oh well. With the responsibility comes the work; and when it rains, it pours. (Don't get me wrong, though - for all this complaining, honestly I revel in being so busy, and thrive under the pressure ;-). )

Two more random data points of note: 1 application was late (5 minutes), and I only got 1 unaccounted for material (a recommendation letter with no corresponding applicant).

And with that, I bid you TGIF! I'm going to go cool off for a weekend. Good luck to all the applicants!