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Data science and AI in the Entertainment Industry with Mikayla Voorn '24
122 Plays1 year ago
Hear firsthand how a passion for music and movies led to an iSchool degree, an internship at Warner Bros., projects helping to measure brand performance, and a full-time job offer before graduation. Mikayla Voorn, a senior in our Applied Data Analytics program, joins us to discuss her path to the iSchool, what she's been researching lately, and how her experience has helped her pursue her career goals.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Infovercity, coming to you from Syracuse University's School of Information Studies. Today's guest is Michaela Vaughan. Hi, Michaela. Hi. She's a senior in our applied data analytics program with a minor in public communications. During her time at the iSchool, she has participated in a number of research projects and has landed internships at Warner Brothers and Market Cast.
00:00:37
Speaker
where she has used her data science skills to help entertainment and media companies measure viewer sentiment and enhance brand engagement. Now in her final year, last year at the iSchool, she's already accepted a job as a data analyst at Warner Brothers Discovery and is leading research teams as part of the school's student-led research lab, Nexus. Welcome, Michaela. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm glad you're here as well.
Switching Majors: From Biotechnology to Data Analytics
00:01:06
Speaker
Your interest lies in that intersection of entertainment and technology. Can you just share with us a little bit about how that started? Yeah. So actually coming into Syracuse, I started as a biotechnology major in arts and sciences. So very different than
00:01:23
Speaker
where I've ended up now. And I really liked statistics in high school. So I decided to pick up a data analytics minor in the high school. And first semester of my freshman year, I took IST 343, which is data in society. And I started learning about all these little intricacies of how data can be used, what it can be applied to. And it really just started opening new doors. I hadn't really looked at data in that way. I always knew I really enjoyed math and looking at numbers.
00:01:52
Speaker
And as I started going through that class, I realized maybe my passions lie more in like that kind of space than in the science space. I still enjoyed my science classes.
00:02:03
Speaker
learning about the content but i didn't really know if i was going to be able to push that next level of you know exploring those things like i was able to get through the classes i enjoyed doing the labs but i never really had that that urge to dig deeper into it but when i was in the iSchool and in those classes i just really loved the atmosphere and the professors and just like the content that it was so i just kept going with that and you know
00:02:30
Speaker
Next thing I know I'm a senior graduating and I finally transitioned into the major at the end of my freshman year and then decided to drop my biotech major at the beginning of my sophomore year which kind of led me into like a spin of what am I going to do with this and
00:02:48
Speaker
So I started looking at different things that I could apply it to, and I've always been interested in entertainment, whether that's movies or music.
Discovering iSchool and Its Benefits
00:02:59
Speaker
We have an amazing program in Newhouse, so I was like, let me try to take a few of those classes. So I started taking some of those classes for a public communications minor, and I just ended up loving it. Those classes paired with my iSchool classes here was just a great mix.
00:03:17
Speaker
I just kept going with that and crossing my fingers until I ended up wearing that. That's awesome. So can I get some clarifications on a few things? When you came in as a freshman, did you know about the iSchool at all? Was it a choice that you were thinking about when you were being admitted to Syracuse University? Did you know about the information field?
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah, so I didn't know much about it to be honest and shout out to my parents. They knew that they thought that the iSchool was going to be a good fit for me and they knew that I liked statistics and I didn't know where to apply that. I mean, I could have picked up a statistics minor, but I wanted to kind of do more with that. So they really encouraged me to check out the iSchool. They knew that this was a field that was like really going to start to boom.
00:04:01
Speaker
And it really has, as we've seen these past few years. So they're the ones that kind of encouraged me to look at the iSchool and, you know, at 18 years old, I kind of nodded off. I was like, yeah, sure, I'll try a class. So I didn't really know what the iSchool was all about coming into it, but, you know, they kind of encouraged me to try something out that I didn't know much about.
00:04:24
Speaker
And I mean, somebody once called the iSchool, the Syracuse's hidden gem. And I so agree with that. It's a small school inside of this big university. And just the classes are amazing. The sizes of the classes are so nice because you really get to know your professors and the other students in your program. So that's been really nice. And I'm glad I've been able to kind of discover it for myself. That's great. And I think you hit on a lot of
00:04:53
Speaker
a lot of tones that sort of resonate with me as someone who's been in the high school for a very long time. So it's great to hear that coming from a younger person, you know, all this excitement and enthusiasm for our school. As you know, I think our school's great. And I think our school has had a future for a long time and it still has a great future. And it's great to find students that find their fit here, right? And see that sweet spot, that blend of
00:05:21
Speaker
technology and data and information and people, right? That blend together forms a pretty valid career path and also research can be done in that area, et cetera.
Impactful Classes and Internships
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah. And you really feel that blend of like people in tech in the iSchool. It's not just like every class you're doing is coding and figuring these things out. It's a lot of problem solving and like
00:05:45
Speaker
understanding the way that different businesses work and how you can apply the skills that you have to any industry that you want to go into, which I think is really cool. Can I have you maybe call out a couple of classes that you enjoyed at your time at the high school? Yeah. And you won't hurt my feelings if mine isn't one of them. No, I was just about to say. But I would love to hear your perspective on what classes really influenced you and what you sort of, you know, a lot of times as an undergraduate, you go into a class and you're like,
00:06:13
Speaker
I don't know what this is going to be all about. And then you leave and you're like, whoa, that was pretty interesting. And reflecting upon your time here is kind of important. So maybe if you want to share a couple of classes. Yeah, so IST 343, that data and society class definitely piques my interest in everything.
00:06:29
Speaker
It was so cool to see how I can apply data to different fields. And so that really sparked my passion. But I will say your IST 256, which is applications and programs. Yeah, it's like Python class. Yeah, which was my intro into coding.
00:06:47
Speaker
I at the same time I was taking some high level science courses which was a lot of work that I found myself instead spending hours and hours and hours on your work because I just enjoyed it so much and I always like wanted to push myself to that next piece and that class really how rigorous it was made me realize that even though this is hard it's something that I really want to do and it's something that I really want to progress in and Professor Nosky was my small group teacher and she
00:07:17
Speaker
was so helpful and like really pushed me. And I mean, I'd go to her office hours every week, like begging for answers. And she's like, no, you got this. You can figure it out. She's very supportive, I have to say. Yeah. And that like boost of confidence with her just believing in me and like giving me that tough love that I needed on, no, you can do this next step yourself. Like you have this knowledge. I really enjoyed that class and that, that really kind of sparked my, my passion for going into programming and stuff.
00:07:46
Speaker
Then IST 359, which is about databases, I found that that class has just been super helpful in my actual internship experience, so learning about SQL and how to perform those. When I was in that class, I was like, all right, this is just another coding class, just something I got to get through. But then going into the workforce and actually using those skills, I realized were super helpful. Now I just begged my professor from sophomore year to let me come back in TA for her class.
00:08:13
Speaker
relearn those skills. And then ISD 195, which is kind of the intro class that all the iSchoolers have to take, is an amazing class. If anybody's listening to this and like wants to try out the iSchool, start there because you kind of go into all the different majors and concentrations that the iSchool has, which is super interesting to learn like bits and pieces about everything.
00:08:35
Speaker
So, I think those are my top ones. I'm sure there's ones that I'm missing, but they're all really cool. So, you know, our school's interdisciplinary. So, you were talking about Newhouse. So, can you talk a little bit about how what you did at Newhouse has really sort of helped and shaped your interdisciplinary nature of what the high school brings? Yeah. So, in Newhouse, I've really focused a lot on their television radio and film program classes.
00:09:00
Speaker
Which have been so interesting so that understanding the entertainment business from that perspective and then being able to come back into the high school and. Take what i've learned there and put it into projects that i can do in these classes.
00:09:16
Speaker
So then like last semester I took a law class on the television and radio and film industry and even that was like I found so applicable to these things that I'm going to be doing because I need to ultimately understand the regulations of
00:09:33
Speaker
the business to be able to perform well and do what I need to do. Right now, I'm even taking a Bandier class, which is the music program, music business program at Syracuse that's in Newhouse. The class is about social media data and the music business, which has been so interesting to learn about from more of a non-technical perspective, how that industry uses data, because then I'm able to go in there with that technical perspective,
00:10:01
Speaker
understand one level further into it but then still knowing what's relevant to the music business. What do they need to know instead of just the iSchool who kind of gives us a huge range of like all these things that we should focus on depending on what industry we go into then being able to take my new house classes and figure out those niche differences and each thing.
00:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I have my notes here and you brought up something that is on these notes and that's talking a little about sentiment, right? And, you know, going into thinking about what you're doing at the radio station and how sentiment plays into a particular topic and talk about maybe some of those challenges that you have experienced.
Sentiment Analysis and AI in Media
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, so I did an internship for a company called Market Cast, who's a market research firm. They've got clients in kind of all different fields. So when I was interning with them, they had me doing a project working on sentiment analysis.
00:11:00
Speaker
Obviously, in all those intro programming classes, you're learning the basics of it. But they challenged me to go one step further to really understand deeper emotions behind it. So I was looking at Twitter data, and I was trying to understand, are people angry? Are people happy? Are people sad? Are they upset? Are they excited?
00:11:22
Speaker
So like looking at that in the in the lens like a product watch. So let's say a company launches a product and they want to understand the social behavior online and how people are responding to it. So yeah we took it one step deeper to try to build a model that would
00:11:39
Speaker
help predict that sentiment, which is so important because companies are always looking for how they're performing on things. And it takes a person days and days and days, and they don't get all that same data that a computer can take in in minutes. So then working with that. But there's definitely challenges because a computer doesn't understand emotions like a human does.
00:12:03
Speaker
They're not able to understand the sarcasm behind something. We had to really take a different approach and understanding how can we give these words different weights when they're used in a sentence a specific way. Honestly, we were doing this project at a great time because it was at the time that chat GPT had just launched.
00:12:25
Speaker
When they launched that, they also launched their open AI API, which has those kind of capabilities that they have within chat GPT. So we were kind of able to take that and give more of a human-like read to it, because that AI kind of understands a little bit further into it. And it can almost understand sarcasm. It's almost there. It's getting there for sure.
00:12:49
Speaker
Not completely, but we were able to take it one step further by using those kinds of things and then applying typical sentiment analysis to it. So you asked about my work at the radio station and what we're trying to look at there is, when are their listeners tuning out of the radio station? Where are they turning off?
00:13:12
Speaker
how sentiment plays into that is, what were the people talking about in their radio show before the listener started tuning out? So we want to take something that can understand like, oh, if you're talking about such and such with this sort of tune in your voice,
00:13:32
Speaker
What does that mean? Will that keep listeners engaged? Will that ultimately have them turn off the show? We're trying to figure out where people drop off at. We're in the beginning phases of that where we're still trying to figure out data collection there, but hopefully we'll be able to find out some pretty cool insights on that.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's neat, because it's music to my ears, because as I always say, sentiment analysis is just one piece of it. You need to know the topic as well, right? The topic is contextual to the sentiment. And you really hit on that in your conversations and in the experience you got. And I was really impressed to see that you picked up Chat GPT and the API and stuff like that. That's great, because that is sort of changing how we think about doing sentiment in a way that's sort of a naive approach.
00:14:19
Speaker
the traditional approach where you're collecting and collecting and collecting data can be a little time consuming. And if you haven't collected data prior, it can be a challenge, right? I mean, you work somewhere like we all of a sudden got to start doing this and you say, well, what data do you have? And they're like, we don't have it. Yeah, exactly. And that's also a piece of it that we used it for as we took a bunch of tweets and we're like, give us the sentiment on this. Are these
00:14:44
Speaker
What's the emotion behind these? And Chat GPT was instantly able to make us that data set instead of us having to go through and label 100,000 tweets, which would have taken us months and months. So it saved us time in that manner and then also saved us time. And kind of taking out of that coding that would usually be necessary for sentiment analysis, we were able to skip a couple of those steps because that API was already able to understand those things.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah. So that being said, how do you feel AI is reshaping like our media experience? Yeah. I wish I had like, you know, the big answer to this. I'm very new to this field.
00:15:24
Speaker
But I actually recently just did some research on this and wrote a paper for one of my classes in Newhouse. And I think there's going to be a lot more personalization, like hyper personalization, but also personalization in the sense that it understands who's in the room with you. So when you sit down on the couch to watch a show,
00:15:42
Speaker
Maybe it will understand who's there with you and be able to not just give predictions for what you want to watch, but for predictions for what everybody wants to watch. And so whether that's it being able to take in your surroundings by like capturing a screenshot and understanding through face recognition who's sitting there, or whether that's just through
00:16:03
Speaker
you know, the chips in our phones, being able to track who's near each other and then communicating with your television set to understand, all right, these people are watching, they usually watch this thing at this time. So I think we're going getting closer to that hyper-personalization. And I know I'm excited for that, especially in like the realm of music entertainment. I'm not very good or shit about funny male music. So I'm always looking for new recommendation engines to come out.
00:16:33
Speaker
I know Spotify just launched something super cool with their AI DJ where it gives you those personalized recommendations from like, this is what you were listening to years ago, or like, this is what we think you might enjoy today and like mixing different things. So I just think there's a lot that can go on in that world, in the world of media and entertainment and stuff with personalization.
00:16:54
Speaker
I would 100% agree. I think that that's where a big opportunity lies because it's not as creepy to us when you're being helpful. And like media is about entertainment, right? If you're making suggestions and it's like for medical purposes,
00:17:10
Speaker
you know, like you shouldn't eat that. But then that becomes a little like the uncanny value. I'm scared of my AI. It's like it's it's too obtrusive. But if you're telling me, helping me figure out what I should be listening to, like it knows I'm working out and it's like play the workout stuff. I don't play the period envelope for Mike, you know, it's like, that's good, right? That's really good.
00:17:28
Speaker
or it knows when you're on your morning commute and you're about to hop on the train and you like to listen to this kind of music to calm you down before. But then when you're actually on that walk to work, you want something to build you up and pump you up for the day ahead. So I think there's a lot of really cool applications with that. And yeah, I do agree. The entertainment sector is a little bit safer in the world of data. You know, things can go wrong quick when people misuse data. And that's what I'm most excited about, the entertainment fields,
00:17:57
Speaker
You know, it's a little bit less creepy than somebody having your health data there, but I think there's a lot of important applications in the world of healthcare as well, but I don't know if I'm ready to dive into that quite yet. Yeah, me neither.
Leadership and Innovation at Nexus
00:18:11
Speaker
I know you're a part of Nexus. I'm your faculty advisor for Nexus. You've been a great steward of Nexus. Can you talk about what it's like being the director of a student organization? Maybe you can put some Nexus spin on it, but just in general. And what inspired you to take such an active role?
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah, so I joined Nexus as a sophomore. I want to say second semester, my sophomore year. And it was really, so for those who don't know, Nexus is a student-run tech lab. We have five different teams, data science, AI, blockchain, VR, and 3D printing. And each semester, students come into the lab and they brainstorm a project. And they try to get as far as they can. Sometimes they continue that into the next semester.
00:19:00
Speaker
Sometimes it stops there because it sparks a new idea. We've had students in the past turn what they've done at Nexus into a real company, which is super cool. I'm trying to encourage some of our students to do that again. So all of our teams are working on such different things and there's so many cool things coming out of there.
00:19:19
Speaker
And for me, Nexus was the first place that I was really equal to try something out that I enjoyed. So in all my classes, you're kind of focused on what you learned in that class and applying those things. But when I came into Nexus, I was kind of able to mix all that knowledge together. And that first semester, I actually partnered with a grad student. So he kind of became a mentor to me because as a sophomore, you want to think that you know it all, but you really don't.
00:19:47
Speaker
So he really, I just sat there and watched him do it on his laptop. And I was like, teach me how to do these things. I was like, I have this idea, but I don't know how to perform this yet. And he's like, all right, let's sit down. Let's figure this out. So I think Nexus really fosters that community in the iSchool to learn and grow, which is an important part of it for me.
00:20:06
Speaker
how I got to where I am. I think it's really just right place, right time. I was in the lab one day working on that project that I was just telling you about with that grad student and the director role is a two-year position. So they needed a sophomore who was going to be a rising junior to take the vice director role that would eventually turn into director.
00:20:28
Speaker
And they saw me working on my project, and they're like, hey, we don't have anybody who's applied for this role yet. We're looking for someone who's got these same kind of qualities that you're showing right now, who's excited to learn, would be a good leader, loves to chat. There's a lot of chatting that goes into running a tech lab, surprisingly.
00:20:47
Speaker
And you know, they really believed in me. So I just kind of took that leap and I was like, all right, I'll try this out. I'm kind of new to that. I've only really been here for a year. But they were really great. They really like fostered me into this role. And there's been a lot of challenges along the way. You know, we have
00:21:08
Speaker
you know, around 100 students in the lab with undergraduate and graduate students coming out at really different skill levels. So, you know, when a freshman joins the data science team and doesn't even know how to code yet, you know, where do you start with that? So we put on like a lot of different opportunities for students to just have like guided projects where they can learn like I did that first semester and get some hands-on experience to decide if this is something they're interested in.
00:21:35
Speaker
I'm always encouraging the students in the Tech Lab to pursue what they're passionate about. If there's not a group researching something that you're interested in, take the initiative to start your own group because there is going to be somebody out there who's interested in those same things. And, you know, as I have been promoting Nexus, everywhere I go, I'm always talking about it.
00:21:55
Speaker
Even in one of my new house classes, I had a grad student who was talking about this app that she wanted to create that mixed AI with fashion and understanding what's in somebody's wardrobe and what outfits work well together and introducing color theory with like, what's the weather outside and all those pieces put together. She's like, I don't know where to start. I don't have any programming experience. I don't know how to develop something like this. And I was like, listen, I know a place where you should look. I've got a bunch of
00:22:24
Speaker
eager researchers who are looking for something to work on. They want to create something. So we've been able to bring in ideas like that where we're partnering with other students that didn't have the resources to build what they were looking for. But then we have that manpower and students who are looking for something to get involved with. And then with the radio station, I'm excited to partner with another student org.
00:22:46
Speaker
that's working on something that they're passionate about and then mixing my passions with that. So bringing in my knowledge of the entertainment industry and the kind of things that we did at Warner Brothers and implementing those kind of metrics into a student-run radio station, which I wouldn't have even thought of doing that three years ago. And now I'm here and where did I start? Leading this lab,
00:23:11
Speaker
It's just so cool, all the little projects that are coming out of here. And you can really see the students so passionate in their work. And we post a poster day at the end of every semester. And all the students are always so excited to share what they've been working on. Because this isn't a class. It's not for grades. The students are doing this because this is something that they're passionate about, something that they want to explore more into, and something that they want to share with people. And everybody wants credit for their work. So it's so cool to get those little opportunities to celebrate each other and see
00:23:41
Speaker
what everybody's been working on and just makes me very proud as a director too, like seeing all the hard work that everybody puts in.
00:23:48
Speaker
I think you've been a great leader as the faculty advisor, just a comment. I think you're like a very good, like you're a connector as a leader. You really draw people together. And that's, I think what this particular organization needs more than anything, because as you mentioned, right, it's all on the student, right? It's your initiative. It's your project. No one's going to give you a grade for it. The incentive is that it just drives you.
00:24:15
Speaker
And it definitely takes a, like a fostering personality. I've seen that in your conversations with everyone in the club. Is there any particular projects that you want to highlight? So I'll talk a little bit about that project that I did my freshman year with that grad student.
Exploring Data and AI Projects
00:24:33
Speaker
So me and Tyler Van Breveren, who's the grad student I worked with, who's since graduated,
00:24:38
Speaker
We, it was my first kind of project looking into the entertainment industry. So we analyzed the top 200 songs on the Spotify charts. And Spotify releases like different metrics on those. So like tempo, like danceability.
00:24:55
Speaker
the main notes that are played. So what we tried to do was look into what common factors are found among those top-rated songs and then what's found in songs that stay on the charts the longest. And it was honestly kind of an unsatisfying project because we really struggled to find anything that tied all of these together.
00:25:18
Speaker
It's classic data science, by the way. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, as frustrated as I was, I was like, why aren't we finding any patterns? But it was also kind of something special because in a world where I like to kind of predict everything and understand where things are coming from, it was cool to see that, you know, not everything is predictable, you know, like sometimes humans just like what they like. And there's so many different things that are coming out into the world. And, you know,
00:25:45
Speaker
We don't have to predict what somebody's gonna like next. Like sometimes it's good to have that human touch on it and people just producing things that they think are gonna be well received by everyone. And I mean, especially in the world of AI right now where everybody's letting AI take the front seat while humans take the back seat. I think projects like that really highlight that
00:26:10
Speaker
You know, we still need that human touch. We still need that creativity that we can bring to it. You know, AI is a great tool to help brainstorm, but it has its limitations. We as humans are the ones that are ultimately going to know
00:26:26
Speaker
what humans like best. And sometimes also just trial and error. So instead of reproducing things that we already have, that project really showed that people aren't looking for copy paste the same thing. Like that's not what's going to be at the top of the charts every week. Like, yeah, maybe there'll be a pop song at the top of the charts, but it doesn't mean that it's going to have the same chords as
00:26:47
Speaker
a song that was number one a week before it did. So that was really interesting to look at and that's been one of my favorite projects just because of how eye opening it was.
00:26:58
Speaker
But then I've also had the opportunity to try out really different projects at Nexus. Last semester, we didn't have anybody leading the 3D printing or the VR team. So I kind of threw my hat into the ring and I was like, listen, if nobody's gonna lead, I'm like, I'll try my best. So I've learned how to use our 3D printer in the lab and our VR headset and
00:27:19
Speaker
I mean, our virtual reality team right now, last semester, we were continuing the project that they worked on last year. I think they're going to keep going with it. But they're looking up bringing sports into a virtual space and what social interactions can look like when they're in a space that we haven't been in before. So now, instead of people having to rush to buy those front row tickets, if you aren't lucky enough to get that opportunity to be front row, what would it be like if that was in
00:27:49
Speaker
virtual reality. And so understanding how you implement something like live sports in that realm. So that's been really cool to look at. So Nexus has just given me the opportunity to look at so many different things, even things that I didn't know I would be interested in. So for that, I'm grateful to Nexus. And sports one's a really interesting opportunity, I think.
00:28:09
Speaker
From a capitalistic standpoint, you can sell more tickets, right? You're some VR front row tickets, right? Can't get the real tickets. And if you're in a double state, you can still watch. Yeah, you and your friends, you could virtually high five each other. Yeah, exactly. And we're looking into those social interactions, understanding what people want in that space and how they can communicate.
00:28:26
Speaker
It's been very interesting. What's this I hear about a legal chat bot? What's up with that? Our AI team last year, we decided to look into how we could create our own chat bot because chat GPT was all the rage.
00:28:44
Speaker
has iSchool students understanding the inner workings of that. And it was super interesting. So we used that open AI API and then we're like, okay, how can we make this different than what's already out there? And as a bunch of tech students, you know, in their early twenties, we know nothing about the legal system.
00:29:06
Speaker
that I could just pull out my phone when you get pulled over for a speeding ticket and you know you're right. It's like you know what you're allowed to say, what you need to do. So that's something we kind of played around with like how can we train a chat bot that's based on the same things as ChatTBT to be specialized for a certain focus and like give you more reliable answers. So we played around with that a little bit, which was a lot of fun to look at and understand the inner workings of open AI and
00:29:35
Speaker
and just AI, generative AI systems as a whole. I mean, that's really what Nexus is all about, right? Exploring, right? It's actually built into the name, right? New Explorations. And that epitomizes what the club is all about, really. That's a great story. I love that. I love that. It's not like you're trying to make a robot lawyer. It's just trying to learn how it all works, you know? Exactly. There's an itch, right? You get pulled over.
00:30:00
Speaker
What do I do? What do I do? Yeah, we were also looking at people who can get a hologram that, you know, pops somebody up that's like a real legal assistant, but they're all virtual. Oh, I'm sorry. My legal assistant says that you're answering that question right now. My legal assistant's doing it real quick. Exactly. Oh, that's great. That's great. So I want to ask you a question. So you've got a jam-packed semester. Yes.
Networking and Career Opportunities
00:30:22
Speaker
You've already got a job lined up.
00:30:24
Speaker
Our listeners would probably love to know how that happens. How do you get a job before you even graduate? How did that come about? Where are you going to be working? I'll be back at Warner Brothers as a data analyst on their subscriber analytics team. I'm very excited for that. That's where I interned this past summer.
00:30:45
Speaker
But in terms of the beginning, it's honestly a lot of luck. As much as I hate to say that, it's luck and hard work. For big companies like Warner Brothers, they get hundreds of thousands of applications. It's hard to find how to make your stand out. Something that the iSchool has done a really great job of is teaching us how to network. Our career services program is amazing.
00:31:10
Speaker
Shout out to Christopher Parello, he's been my mentor through this all. He started with me my sophomore year when I had no idea what I wanted to do and he encouraged me to just try out some options and the best way to figure out what you want to do is talking to people who are doing it.
00:31:27
Speaker
So he had me make a list of some different companies that I'd be interested in, and then he helped me find alumni, either connections with students that he had already known that had graduated, or teaching me how to go on LinkedIn and search Syracuse alumni at these specific companies. So when I was looking at Warner Brothers, I obviously really wanted to get into that entertainment industry, so this was a big push.
00:31:52
Speaker
I met JP through Christopher. And JP was actually an alumni. He did computer science in the School of Engineering. And he messaged him. I was like, can we have a 30 minute chat? And he told me all about what he does at Warner Brothers. And this was my sophomore year. And quite honestly, a lot of it went right over my head. I was like, this sounds so cool. But you know where you got to go now, right? There's a sophomore year. You're like, I know where I need to go.
00:32:21
Speaker
Exactly. And that connection was great. And so by that point, they had already closed their internships for that year. And quite honestly, they're not usually looking for software. So if any softwares are out here listening, don't be discouraged if you don't get an internship sophomore year, especially at a big company like that. But I was kind of determined to. So I kept reaching out to alumni.
00:32:44
Speaker
and reached out to this man named Martin who worked at MarketCast. And I didn't really expect much out of the conversation. It was like 30 minutes. Next thing I know, he's pushing me through the pipeline of applications, like getting mine to the top. And then that summary actually worked for him. And it was a business development role, which is like a lot like sales.
00:33:04
Speaker
is not necessarily a field that I wanted to go into, but I knew that they had an entertainment wing of the company. So I was like, this is my foot into the door. If I can learn these things and get in there, maybe I can learn about their entertainment side too. So I really took that internship and thank goodness for my manager, Vanessa. She really helped me
00:33:27
Speaker
network with different people inside that company and meet different people. So I started learning more about the entertainment business, started learning more about the data science stuff. And then after that summer, when I went into my next semester, I started my internship with our data science team. And then, oh, so back to JP. So JP was at Warner Brothers. I'm sorry, I'm all over the place. And so I talked to him
00:33:50
Speaker
that last semester of my sophomore year and then their applications launched first semester of my junior year while I was working at MarketCast. So I had all that experience from MarketCast and I was ready to take it to Warner Brothers.
00:34:02
Speaker
So JP had connected me with a recruiter at Warner Brothers, which was really amazing. If you can ever reach out to a recruiter and get them to respond, that's the golden ticket, honestly. So then I reached back out to this recruiter that I had met that previous semester. And she gave me some tips, and she helped get my resume to the top of the stack. Because high school students, we have the projects that make us stand out. We have those tools.
00:34:29
Speaker
But, you know, you're just another number unless you can form those connections. So yeah, she helped push me through that pipeline again at Warner Brothers. And, you know, by October of my junior year, I already had my internship lined up at Warner Brothers, which was really amazing.
00:34:45
Speaker
And then you just work hard. I treated every day as my internship that summer as kind of a job interview, proving myself. And then September of this past year, they gave me a return offer and I was like, yes, I'm going back.
00:35:00
Speaker
I'll be in New York City. So it will be lots of fun. That's excellent. So like what what is next for you? Like what do you see? Okay, you go off you you start working and but what do you see yourself doing in five years? Maybe I think I'll probably stay in the entertainment sector, whether that's still something like video entertainment, like the way that Warner Brothers is or whether it's music and understanding those kinds of behaviors. I'm really enjoying this this world right now. So
00:35:30
Speaker
and planning on sticking with it. I really like the idea of data analytics, and I've learned a little bit about strategy through some of my internships, and that option sounds really interesting to me, like understanding the data, and then how can you apply it to the next thing? How can you build on top of it and find those next big things that should be created?
00:35:53
Speaker
So that's really interesting to me. Then also me going down the data science route and figuring out how can you predict what people want to watch next or how can you predict what music somebody wants to hear. So who knows where I'll be in five years. I've got a lot of really cool ideas of where I want to be but you know even these four years that the iSchool has taught me that
00:36:14
Speaker
Anything can change in the blink of an eye. With the AI boom that's going on right now, so many jobs are going to be created within these next five years that maybe what I'll be doing then isn't something that's even available to do right now. So who knows? But I think I want to stay with this sector of entertainment for a little while. That's great. It's been a real pleasure talking with you, and I'm so happy that you took the time out to talk with me. It's been great. Thanks for having me. Thank you. I appreciate it.