Every year, “summer break” is greeted with smiles and noisy excitement.
However, even though it is a hiatus from the busy school days, the lengthy duration of the season clears time for students to experience opportunities outside of school.
This past summer, many Hockaday students participated in summer programs or internships to not only pursue their personal interests but to also learn more about themselves.
Counting Teeth
Junior Ava Ortega worked at her father’s orthodontics clinic, White Rock Orthodontics, where she witnessed firsthand the hustle of the office. Between scheduling appointments, sterilizing equipment and fitting retainers, she was surrounded by adult co-workers and found joy in meeting with teen patients throughout the day.
“There was a boy my age that I was helping fit his retainers, and I was wearing my scrubs,” Ortega said. “And he asked me if I was a sophomore in college, and then I said, ‘So I’m actually your age.’”
As part of her training and experience, Ortega’s co-workers taught her to recognize dental notations and the numbers of each tooth.
“My dad and his employees thought it was really funny to point to a tooth and then ask me what number the tooth was,” Ortega said. “That was the learning curve.”
Ortega particularly enjoyed the hands-on learning experience of orthodontic practices and the workplace atmosphere.
“It’s a really welcoming environment with a lot of new technology that older orthodontic offices don’t use,” Ortega said.
Money Matters
Sophomore Shreya Kirumaki interned at Mora & Associates Inc., a firm which aims to help members of the Hispanic community with financial guidance.
Immersed in the vast specialties of the firm, Kirumaki spent her weeks working in various areas, including accounting, real estate, payroll, insurance, and taxes.
She learned to complete company payrolls, process bank statements, read tax statements, and interpret profit-loss statements.
“It was a lot of data,” Kirumaki said. “I found it interesting because you have to figure out what expense goes in what category.”
She also witnessed a closing deal, the final process of a sale where both the firm and the client negotiated to reach an agreement. This experience was the highlight of her time at the firm and helped her to gain more insight into the finance realm.
“I would recommend any internship opportunity, in business especially, because it is so hard to know what you want to do unless you start doing it,” Kirumaki said. “I think anywhere that you can intern or shadow is really helpful.”
The Stanford Effect
Senior Sophie Karthik traveled to California to participate in the Stanford Residential Summer Program, studying biotechnology, cancer biology, and physiology.
While learning about the hallmarks of cancer, gene editing processes and technologies, Karthik also explored bioethics related to RNA and DNA editing.
“Especially with gene editing, one big thing we learned about was bioethics,” Karthik said. “That was a big part of our course, which was interesting because recently this company called Theranos scammed a bunch of people.”
She said these classes helped improve her presentation skills through her final projects.
Her favorite project was creating a novel therapeutic to treat cancer.
“For the project, you started a business and at the end you would introduce [the therapeutic you created] to the class,” Karthik said. “My group did uterine carcinosarcoma, which is a cancer that starts in the uterus, and our therapeutic was based on CRISPR, which is a technology we learned about in biotechnology.”
For Karthik, collaborating with different groups of people of diverse backgrounds and various work ethics was a highlight.
“At Stanford, there’s so many talented people,” Karthik said. “You’ll just meet them randomly. It’s really amazing to see that.”
Design Challenge
Junior Eleanor Murchison worked at Collins Interiors for six weeks, learning how to design floor plans, organize wallpaper and tile samples, and make calls for fabric inventory and costs.
“I would typically arrive at [Collins Interiors] and there would be a bunch of samples on my desk,” Murchison said. “I would remember what stores each of [the samples] went to and drive to the Design District. Then, I would go talk to the vendor who was correlated with the company.”
She also gained experience drawing a mock floor plan for an old client’s house and pulling fabrics and trims for rooms based on client’s taste.
“I picked up that one of the clients we were working didn’t like red – they were more of a blue person,” Murchison said. “They liked masculine prints, some browns, but it was mainly bold patterns.”
Her favorite part was the nature of the people working at Collins Interiors and the appreciative environment there.
“The people were all so sweet,” Murchison said. “I love everyone, and they made me feel so welcomed. It was fun getting to know everyone and hearing their stories.”
