The Hit of the Day

Today I participated in Greece Apollo's Non-Traditional Occupations Day for girls. It was so much fun! The day began with a keynote speech about financial independence by Kitty Van Bortel (of Van Bortel Subaru), which was a really great talk and very inspiring. We then participated in a "What's My Line?" like game for the girls. Each of the 9 women (I was #3) stood up and read a little riddle, from which the girls were supposed to guess what occupation we each represented. My riddle was:

The best part of my job is the variety I encounter,
If I wasn’t good at math my job would be a downer.

My day is filled with physics, engineering, and geometry,
While working with megapixels, CMOS, and CCD.

You can see my work on the computer screen,
But my team remains in the lab, unseen.

Clever, right? (I didn't write it, but I supplied a wealth of terms to use.) The 9 of us represented a scientist; a gas line technician; imaging scientist; civil engineer; cook; police detective; plumber; playground builder; and a firewoman - so we made up a really nice variety of jobs both intellectual and physical. After we all read our riddles, we each announced who we were and had a chance to describe what we do, what got us into our careers, advice for the girls, etc. This was all a lot of fun and resulted in many cheers and applause!

From here we moved into separate classrooms to perform skills exercises. There were 10 groups of about 15 girls each, and we were given 12 minutes with each group to describe what we do and give the girls an exercise to perform: for example, the cook was having them participate in a cooking demonstration; the firefighters had the girls try on fire resistant suits; etc. I took the FLIR thermal infrared camera, explained how it worked and what it was used for, and then we got to play around in front of the camera. Volunteers were given stickers with the Platypus Seal of Approval, which were a huge hit!

Always a classic.

The girls had a lot of fun - This was one of my most favorite groups! (A couple of these girls even said they wanted to BE me - sucking up is always a plus.)

She's been APPROVED!

The skills booth portion of the day is always such an experience. First of all, doing a 12 minute demonstration 10 times over can be very draining! But what always surprises me the most is the variety of groups I get. Most groups of girls are AMAZING, but then there are always one or two that are problematic, which is unavoidable. In one of my groups there was a down right clique of bullies, who started to pick on the somewhat shy girl who was the only one of the group that had the guts to volunteer to go in front of the camera. Not only was this unacceptable in and of itself, but their bad attitudes were discouraging the rest of the group from participating or showing and interest whatsoever. This is something I absolutely have no patience for.

If you pick on the volunteers, you are automatically the next volunteer (but no sticker for you!). However, they refused to cooperate and were willing to ruin the experience of the rest of the group, despite the requests both from my myself and their teacher chaperon. After a staring contest, the solution became simple: I turned the camera on them.

My classroom, my rules. Tough love: Bethany style.

They didn't appreciate this very much. But I think my brave first volunteer did. (And I suppose the photographer must have too since she took a picture of the event.) There will be no bullying going down when Sheriff Bethany's in town.

Meanwhile this did nothing to dampen my mood on the day. After we made it through all 10 groups we were treated to a pizza lunch (always a bonus!) and then were each presented flowers and a certificate of appreciation, all to grand applause. According to several organizers as well as fellow presenters, I was told on several separate occasions that the Imaging Science demonstration was the hit of the day - apparently the girls couldn't stop talking about it after they left! (Who knew - I was afraid I couldn't live up to the cook or the fire fighter.) Hopefully being a part of this day will help raise interest in Imaging Science at RIT and encourage young girls to keep taking math and science in high school.

Overall the event was a great success and I am proud to have participated! The Greece Apollo NTO day is a great opportunity for the students, and I wish more schools had the resources to be able to put together additional events like this one. I look forward to being a part of it again next year!

Up next: An Evening of Career Exploration at Gates Chili, later tonight...

Interview Basics

Yesterday I visited my alma mater, Rush Henrietta, to give a special presentation about Imaging Science, our summer high school internship, and some interview basics. This is such a useful presentation to high school students because, even though it is focused on our internship selection process, it contains vital information that would come in handy under any interview situation. You'd be surprised how many high school students show up for their interview in jeans and a t-shirt, chewing gum, 10 minutes late! While the presentation was not largely attended, the students who did come seemed like a great group - they were interactive, interested, and had even heard about Imaging Science before. I look forward to seeing them succeed at their interviews... Here's hoping I'll be seeing more of them this summer!

Interested in having a similar presentation done at your school? Contact me! choate @ cis.rit.edu (remove spaces)

Snow schmow

Today I met with a potential summer intern and her mom, and gave them a tour of the building. These kinds of meet ups are probably my favorite aspect of my job, especially when they are as enjoyable as today's. I have had such great experiences at RIT because of the Center for Imaging Science, and I love to share this background with others. It is also a lot of fun to talk about all of the amazing and varied research projects we have going on here in CIS. It is especially exciting when I can sense my visitor's own enthusiasm for RIT, much like how I was when I was in their shoes. I sensed a warm, friendly, and eager connection today, and hope that we can welcome this bright and talented student as one of our own in fall 2012!

A Behind the Scenes Look

So it has been a while since I've posted. The main reason for this is that I have a lot of things quietly going on behind the scenes. There are some exciting new changes to be unveiled soon, including a new look and feel on the CIS webpage. Some of these changes have already been rolled out, but there are even more to come. 

Also, I've been working towards the next issue of the CIS Imaging Connection alumni newsletter, which should be getting out by break week. Speaking of alumni, some upcoming Alumni Receptions are in the works, so be on the look out for those! 

I have some visitors coming in next week to see CIS and RIT, which I am looking forward to. It's always a lot of fun to show some fresh faces around campus and share with them my wonderful experiences here. Two of the girls are students I presented to at Midlakes a couple weeks ago, so it will be fun to see them again! I'm very proud to have had such an impact on them. One of my other visitors is a potential summer intern - speaking of which, I've also been helping organize the High School Summer Intern program for 2011. This is something I am really excited about, especially because that is how I first got involved in Imaging Science, myself! It is both easy and impossible to believe that this summer will have been 10 years since I was here as an intern myself - man do I feel old! (Shh, don't tell anyone it's been that long already... Though I guess I just did.)

Well it's back to work for me so I can get everything done before I am out of the office for a few days. Will you be catching pink hair in the crowd of the Daily Show next Tuesday??? I know I'll be setting my DVR...

Oops

There is an RIT Young Professionals group just starting up on campus, which I am looking forward to being involved with. Unfortunately, their only meetings so far have been lunch-time on Tuesdays - which for the past 2 weeks I have had a meeting scheduled during that time. Today's lunch invitation included this link from CNN/CareerBuilder.com about the benefits of taking lunch breaks away from your desk - which, coincidentally, I read not long after eating my lunch solo in my office :-(. It is an interesting read and I suggest you check it out! Luckily, my usual lunch activity is half an hour of open skate at Ritter (noon-time sessions are free for students, faculty/staff, and alumni!) - which might explain how I manage to be such a productive Outreach Specialist, hmm?

Speaking of our grad programs...

Now that promotions are ramping up for the REU, it makes sense to also spread the word about grad school offerings in CIS, since both would be aimed at the same audience (current undergraduates). As you may remember, a new postcard has been created toward that end. However, as in the same case as the REU postcard, there was a demand to create a flyer that could be quickly printed on campus to be able to hand out in the mean time while we wait for the postcards to get printed. Presenting....

Ta-Da

 CIS grad program handouts. Now available!

REU frenzy!

Wow, this past week has been a total whirlwind. With our new REU program comes a whole new set of supporting materials and websites that need creating; and since we are a little behind when it comes to Summer 2011 REU programs, it all needed to get done FAST.

Things started with the postcard I posted a little bit ago. But since that will take some time to get printed, I had to also quickly mock up a flyer to hand out:

One thing to note here, however, was the website at the bottom for more info - It didn't exist yet! So, I spent many hours painstakingly creating the Imaging in the Physical Sciences REU Information Page, as well as all of its subpages. The site includes a description of the program, and links to the following: a list of the participating CIS laboratories; supplemental activities for participating students; program benefits; additional background info; and of course a link to the actual application form (the one component that I did not create).

After becoming familiar with all of the aspects of the program thanks to putting together all of this, I have to say it sounds like an amazing opportunity! Unfortunately it is not really something I can include in my main line of work, since it is a program for students that do not go to RIT; so I can't exactly use it to recruit students into the Imaging Science undergraduate program. But hopefully some current ugrad students from elsewhere will have a great experience and want to come to RIT for our graduate program offerings in CIS.