GE's Global Research Center

WEEK 26 (December 5-11)

Monday goes by in a blur. I start out my morning shooting off some e-mails and getting in touch with several proposal checklist team members for final approvals. 

I work through lunch plugging away on a manual of sorts for the India program I've been working on since I’ll be getting ready to leave soon and the process of looking up which parts we need to procure must continue after I leave. That arduous task has me sifting through every old e-mail I have, deciphering messages from at least 10 different people and trying to put it all together into a coherent guide.

In the midst of my gathering, I also get back the bids and proposals DAN tracking ‘tree’ that a Finance co-op put together for me. It’s quite the chart and I’m super grateful for her help (I don’t think I could have done it!).

The rest of the day is spent fine-tuning my parts procurement manual, cleaning out my computer and organizing files and other end-of-co-op preparations. 

After work I manage to quickly sneak in some holiday shopping for my family. Since I won’t be home this year for the holidays (the first time ever!)  I have to make sure I ship everything this weekend before I leave for my trip. I then grab a quick dinner at home before heading to campus for a three-hour working meeting with my Market Research group on our TRU Chocolate presentation. We run analyses on cross tabs, correlations, frequencies and Wordles (www.wordle.net) and work to help prep our PowerPoint slides for our other team members who will put that portion together for our presentation on Thursday. I don’t leave campus until past 10:00pm and don’t make it to bed until after 11:30pm as I continue to plug away on the project once I get home.

Tuesday morning is rough getting up. I’m definitely not getting my requisite 6.5 hours of sleep a night and it’s starting to show.  Nonetheless, I make it to work by my normal 7:30am hour.

Today, as seems to be the theme of my life as of late, is very busy. My morning is spent frantically working on my proposal checklists, sending out reminder e-mails and doing other wrap-up work.

I have an hour-and-a-half ‘how’d it go’ session for Northeastern co-ops  over lunch where I present a couple of slides on my experience at GE Aviation, provide suggestions for improvement, etc. to the entire Northeastern co-op population. While I had to duck out before all were finished I was grateful for the Panera lunch.

After my stealth escape from the co-op meeting I rush downstairs in time for an hour-long meeting with my boss, which he dubbed my ‘end-of-tour’ meeting (love it!). We go over everything from my schedule for the last couple of weeks, to my report-outs, to final reviews. I can’t believe how fast this is going and I really wish I had an extra few days to wrap it all up.

I get in a couple more hours of work that day before I leave to catch the bus. But, since I wasn't able to complete all the work I would have liked, I bring my laptop home with me for the first time. This makes me feel trés grown-up.

That night I meet at friend at Panera for a study session. I manage to (after much error) send out the discount codes to all of our TRU Chocolate respondents, get their names and e-mails to our client for cross-reference on codes and work a little on my Living Document 3.

Can't wait for my prize to arrive!

 At least one ‘happy’ thing keeps me going tonight. At work I received a Tweet directly from Lindt & Sprungli (makers of those amazing Lindor truffles!) notifying me that I won a giant basket of chocolate Lindt holiday bears. See kids, Twitter is good for you!

I stay up late doing more work but I take some comfort in the fact that I get an extra hour of sleep tomorrow because I’m going to GE's Global Research Center!

Wednesday morning I meet up with four GE co-ops at the Marino Center near campus for our four-hour carpool to Niskayuna, NY to visit the Global Research Center. I’m lucky to have gotten in such a fun group for the drive and we quickly pass the time. All 14 of the co-ops meet up in Schenectady before the tour for lunch at Bombers Burrito Bar. While it satisfied my hunger, the island wrap and rasta fries I ordered left me unimpressed (despite my car-mate touting the restaurant's amazing food). 

Our tour of the GRC lasted about four hours. We stopped by several departments including electric vehicles, metallurgy and composites. We even had a panel of researchers stop in to answer our questions. Overall, I was very impressed with the facility (a far cry from the ‘retro’ Lynn site) and enjoyed seeing the future of GE business while getting a wider perspective of all of the companies that make up the GE conglomerate. While we don’t get home that night until about 7:30pm, I’m glad to have had such a unique experience.

Thursday morning I’m up early as if I’m heading to work, but I’m not…I will be attending the Northeastern/GE Strategy session on the Northeastern campus. I'm so honored to have been invited to help shape the 2012 strategy! But first, I have to get some work in. I bring my laptop to the Curry Center, somehow manage to log onto my work system (it was more complicated than it sounds, believe me) and squeeze out a couple of hours of productivity. I check my e-mails, work on my pitch to the recruiting team and manage to lift some of the pressure off my shoulders. 

The GE/Northeastern Strategy session goes quite well. In fact, I kick off the meeting with my pitch. I speak for nearly half an hour and seem to be getting some positive response from the group (which includes individuals form Corporate, Capital, Home and Business Solutions and Aviation). Unfortunately, I can’t stay for the entire six-hour session and bolt out of the room at 12:15pm to grab my train. I do see the Director of the Career Center as I walk out though and give her a quick 'hello'.

While waiting for my bus I hurriedly eat an Au Bon Pain sandwich I snagged while running to Ruggles, but after a few bites I notice that my tooth has broken! Yikes! This is the last thing I need, especially considering that the Northeastern health plan I belong to doesn’t include dental insurance.  Trying not to be too upset I call the referral office and manage to schedule an appointment for Monday to have it capped. I’ll have to leave work a bit early but it was the only slot they had and I need this front tooth fixed before I head on my trip.

I get to the office that day at 1:30pm and cram work. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with GE work for one of the first times since I’ve been here. I have my dry-run of the report-out I’ve been putting together due tomorrow to my boss. In fact, even with the three plus hours of work that I get that afternoon, I end up taking my computer home again.

But, of course there is no rest for the weary. I head right to campus for a 6:00pm meeting with my Market Research group for our final presentation. The presentation will cover our findings on the TRU Chocolate survey we developed. I think it goes quite well and we even had some more advanced analysis than many groups. Fortunately, this is the last class of the year which means I have the two hours the class would have run next week to work on the craziness of the rest of my life. Now, don’t forget, my group still has our final paper worth 34% of our grade due on Thursday at noon! Yikes!

I make a beeline for my apartment and am up until midnight working on my GE report-out presentation for tomorrow. I might have spent too much time on making it look ‘pretty’ but this is pretty much the only report-out I’ve done to my team (the other being to recruiting) and I want to make a good final impression.

Friday morning I’m exhausted but I still have to get a ton done before my 10:00am dry-run pitch to my boss. I make as many edits as possible to my checklists, add some nice graphics to the pitch and generally take every last moment to prepare. 

Fortunately, the pitch goes quite well. We even end up taking half an hour more than allotted to discuss my Northeastern final review and the coming week. I’ll be honest, I’m beginning to get a little nostalgic for my GE co-op and it’s not even over yet!

After that both my boss and I head to a ‘Lunch and Learn’ that covers international trade compliance, specifically, how to account for third party nationals and dual citizens in your licenses. This is important when transferring proprietary information to another country both while on contract and before because the U.S. Government applies restrictions to certain nationalities.

The rest of the day is busy with more proposal checklist tasks, processing-out documents and the like. 

When I leave work I head right to my first physical therapy session to tend to my knee. It goes as well as it can considering I apparently now have both hip and knee issues – sigh. Oh well, I guess when I turned 25 I also inherited the body of an 85-year-old. I get my sheet of directions for my exercises and am instructed to complete them everyday.

This weekend is dedicated to one thing: errands. I do everything from packing for my trip, to buying holiday gifts, to hitting up campus for some group work, essay-writing and buying textbooks for next semester (yeah, I’m that on top of things). 

Well hello, cupcake!

In fact, the only real ‘fun’ activity I partake in all weekend is a sophomore visit to the South End Buttery with my classmate and her parents. This time it’s all about the breakfast bread basket (including amazing handmade scones and pumpkin bread), some delectable huevos rancheros and a strawberries and cream cupcake. 

As the weekend ends you’d swear I did nothing with the laundry list of items still looming over me but I promise that I was super productive. Now bring on my last week at GE!

*The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of GE Aviation, Northeastern University, their staff, employees or affiliates.