Author: n.montoya

For almost 2 months now, I have had an internship at the digital marketing company OpenSlate Data. My cousin, Carlos Restrepo, approached me with the opportunity to help out the sales team if it was able to fit my schedule. I knew this was going to be an amazing opportunity to work with a successful start-up that was rated by Business Insider as “The 19 most interesting tech start-ups of 2017.” I made time in my schedule and fitted it in by going Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Initially, I was a little nervous because I would be working with professionals in a field where I virtually had no experience. However, the sales team, especially Larry Miller, who oversees my projects, is the leader of the East Coast Sales Team, and he’s been very friendly and helpful with me.

OpenSlate focuses on giving advertisers information and data on YouTube channels in order for them to choose the channels that are best-suited for them, that fit with their brand-safety and demographic requirements. So far, I have been tasked with checking Spanish videos for brand-safety (they are expanding their product to hit the Spanish market), organizing their revenue accounts, and gathering information on potential clients. While these projects have been relatively simple, I have been able to learn a lot about the company’s functions such as the process in making a sale, maintaining customer relations, and how processing revenue works.

Most importantly, I hope this continues to be a fruitful and rewarding experience. It’s been a great opportunity to get into the professional world, especially marketing, which I am highly considering for my major. Just being able to work with an amazing sales team has been a great experience and I have learned so much in the couple of weeks I have been working with them. I hope there will be many more opportunities like this one.

 

 

When Aidan, Alex, and I arrived we saw a small line forming near the side entrance. Little did we know that there was a large zig-zag line inside, we ended up waiting for about an hour…We finally met up with Racquel and Sam and got to explore some interesting exhibits. The exhibits that we liked the most was the Bio-Diversity exhibit and the Marine Life. The Bio-Diversity exhibit had all types of animals, ranging from vertebrae such as lions, and birds to invertebrates, which had a plethora of insects.The Marine Life in particular had some preserved lobsters that were huge! Finally, my favorite exhibit and perhaps the one everyone gets excited about are the fossil exhibits which have all kinds of dinosaur bones and remains. I found it very interesting how certain ancestors of wildboar, with huge tusks, weren’t actually carnivores. There was also a relatively new exhibit that I hadn’t seen before. The last time I visited the museum was when I was in middle school, about 6 years ago. However this new discovery from Argentina was just introduced in 2013, which for me is relatively new because most of the fossils they have are pretty old and were discovered decades ago. All in all, I had a great experience and the fact that entry to many cultural institutions in NYC are free because I’m a CUNY student is encouraging me to go visit other museums.

Coming from a predominantly white high school. I thought the opportunity to join a club for Hispanic students would be a great opportunity. I was immediately greeted with some loud Latin music and people dancing and talking loudly, very Latino! There was Latin food being served and the opportunity to sign up for various clubs, of which I signed up for LASO.

There were dancing games going on, people volunteered, and we all laughed as they played “Musical Chairs” although there was a twist that there weren’t actually chairs but rather you had to quickly find a dance partner instead. This was just a glimpse into what LASO is all about and it seems like a high energy club that I look forward to being a part of.

I also found out that a couple of people that I used to run track against are also Colombian (Vamos Colombia!) and I thought that was very fitting because we used to run against each other but now we were able to connect through our heritage. This is what LASO is all about, connecting people through a commonality, which is that we can all relate through our experiences of being Latino.

I’m glad that I found a club that I can look forward to being a part of. Coming into Baruch I knew I wanted to be a part of something new, something that I hadn’t been a part of in high school. LASO seems like the perfect club where I can meet new people, make friends, and have a lot of fun. I’m excited for what’s next.