Mara Oda '10
Mara Oda’s Blog
Week 7
September 2nd, 2009 by moda10
Week 7 This past week flew by in the blink of an eye and it’s hard to believe that my internship in Arizona is over. One new thing that I experienced at the internship this week, was sitting in on a monthly financial meeting between one of the project accountants, and one of the project managers that they work with. It was a good experience, and it was interesting to see what happens with the reports that they create. (I worked on some as well.) The meetings seem like a good way to review each project’s status, and make sure that everyone has the same information and is on the same page. A lot of the jobs that I did this week were similar to work that I’ve done before so instead of going into detail about that, I’ll wrap up the internship in general. This internship has been an amazing adventure; not only the work aspect of it, but the entire experience of moving to, and living in a new city by myself for a while. I’m extremely grateful that I was presented this opportunity by TGen and the Berry Center, and that I took it. It didn’t give me all of the answers, and tell me exactly what it is that I should do after Cornell, but it lead to a lot of self-discovery and questions which I think I was even more beneficial. I think that most importantly it made me excited for life after Cornell. I had always been excited, but recently I’ve gotten very nervous since I’m not sure exactly what it is that I want to do. However, having done this internship I feel more confident in my ability to adapt quickly and do well in the workplace. This calms some of my fears, and knowing that there are so many different possibilities out there is exciting. The staff that I’ve worked with here at TGen has been absolutely amazing, so while I’m excited to see everyone at Cornell again, it’s sad to leave. They’ve been extremely helpful, and have often gone out of their way to make sure that the internship has been a valuable experience for me. It’s been a great but fast two months!
Week 6
September 2nd, 2009 by moda10
Week 6 This past week was exciting! In addition to the regular jobs that I’ve been getting from the project accountants, I was given a number of exciting opportunities to do something completely different than my normal routine. On Thursday, I meet with the Vice-President of TD2 (a division of TGen) that is the focus of my project for academic credit. It was a little nerve wracking in the beginning but it was exciting to be able to discuss the project with her, and ask questions about the division and its operations. I was able to ask her about the way in which the division operates and makes decisions, and it was interesting to hear her take on the question that I am trying to address in my paper. I’ve really enjoyed working on the project, and everyone that I’ve talked to about it has been extremely helpful; helping me pull the information that I need and answering questions that I have about the data along the way. Friday was also exciting in that I was able to tour the labs over on the science side of TGen. I realized earlier this week that I still hadn’t seen them, so I contacted Candice (a Cornell alumna) and she said I could join a tour that she already had planned for later in the week. Before seeing the labs, Candice talked to us about the work that TGen does. While I knew the basic premise of TGen’s work before, it was interesting to learn about the institute’s history and the diverse research they do. They perform research in the areas of oncology, diabetes, airborne pathogens, Alzheimer’s, etc. After repeatedly hearing the names of the scientists, their labs, and their jobs mentioned, it was fun to be able to see where they work, what kind of equipment they use, and what it is that all of the administrative work supports.
Week 5
August 20th, 2009 by moda10
Week 5 It seemed like this week just didn’t have enough hours in the work day to get everything done! I’ve discovered that post-it’s, outlooks task function, and regular notepads do wonders in helping to keep everything straight. I put sticky notes on papers that the project accountants give me so that when I get to the job, I remember what to do or where to look in the databases, and am constantly writing to do lists and notes for myself so that I don’t forget the different jobs that I’ve been given. I try to keep my desk at work neat but it seems inevitable that by mid day I need to tidy the up the papers. The audit starts this coming Monday, so most things this week seem to have focused on preparing for that. In addition to helping the project accountants with jobs that they would ask me to do, I worked to put together binders and spreadsheets containing all of the new grants, sub-awards, and contracts that TGen has received in the past year. We needed to do this in order to be able to show the auditors exactly where all of the money that the institute has received in the past year came from. The funding at TGen comes from a number of different sources; the institute receives numerous federal grants from the National Institute of Health, while they also serve as sub awardees in cases where other institutes or universities are the prime recipients of grants or awards. In these cases, TGen acts as a sort of consultant and has a cost reimbursable agreement with the organization receiving the prime award. Other sources of funding include contracts and donations. While doing this job entailed a lot of photocopying and organizing, it was also interesting because in looking for some of the details that the auditors requested, I was able to skim some the documents and see what type of work TGen is doing. In the past week I have also given more thought to my academic project, and developed a stronger proposal, so I am excited about that and am ready to collect data and really work on it this coming week. Two weeks isn’t very long to put together a project but on the other hand, I guess it’ll put in block plan mode ahead of time!
Week 4
August 14th, 2009 by moda10
Week 4 I wouldn’t have guessed that work weeks would go by as quickly as they do, but it’s exciting to realize that I’ve been here for as long as I have. While there are still so many things to learn, and so much about the office that I don’t know yet, it’s fun to see the progression each week. The office is continuing to get ready for the audit which starts mid-August, so things are a little hectic as work is being done to close the financials for the fiscal year 2008-2009, June, and July. Although preparing for the audit is busy, I’m anticipating what it will be like when the auditors arrive because it sounds like once they do, things will pick up even more. It seemed like I had quite a bit to do this past week; compared to other weeks or days when I would be given a task, and then receive a new one after completing the first job, it seemed like this week I constantly had a to-do list going. While some of the jobs were new to me and I would work with a project accountant on these, a lot of the others were jobs that I had previously learned how to do and for the most part could do on my own. Having been at TGen for almost a month now, I’m starting to get a sense of the patterns that takes place. Since the same reports or jobs seem to be due at the same time each month, the jobs in a given week seem dependent on the week and what it involves in regards to the schedule. Other than that, I’ve been starting to think about project ideas that I can do for academic credit. The project that I will be working on should address a financial problem that TGen has, drawing upon the theories and ideas of managerial economics. A key aspect of managerial economics is making business decisions based upon quantitative information resulting from a mathematical model. However, the fact that TGen is a non-profit organization, has made this brainstorming step in the project a little harder for me. In the work that I’ve done or have been exposed to, I haven’t seen financial problems of the company first hand, but I’ve talked to one of the project accountants about the project. He is helping me brainstorm ideas, and I should have a clearer project proposal by next week. I’ll be working on this in the next few weeks.
Week 3
August 3rd, 2009 by moda10
Week 3 It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here for so long! On one hand it seems like time has flown by but on the other hand it seems like I’ve been here for a while. Since I last posted I’ve gotten more used to the office and things are starting to feel regular. It’s exciting to see what I’ve learned in the past few weeks; I don’t feel as lost when listening to their conversations filled with abbreviations, and number codes for projects, awards, cost centers, etc; and I am learning how to do different jobs using the database. The past few weeks have been filled with “old jobs”- ones that I’ve previously learned to do, and “new ones”. One of the project accountants has been gone for the past two weeks so before leaving she put together a list of jobs that I could help her with. While a few of things on the list were tasks that I learned how to do earlier, there were a number of new jobs that I completed with the help of the other project accountants. One such job was baselining the budget for one of the large federal grants. The budget had already been approved, so it was simply a matter of entering the figures into the database, according to the breakdown that had been given to us, so that the funds would be available for use. I also worked with other staff members to create an invoice, and prepare a binder for an upcoming audit. The audit is for a research consortium that donates money to TGen, and the binder is composed of various checklists and financial statements that document expenditures for specific funds. However, doing this has reiterated the fact that with accounting, incomplete information in one area leads to an inaccurate picture in another. As new expenditures have come in, and other cost transfers have been made, we’ve needed to revise the previous forms that we have done. In the last week I’ve also prepared two packets for walk through audits that TGen has had. This has consisted of pulling various financial statements and all of the relevant paperwork that goes with it from various segments or modules in the database. For example, for one audit we needed to present an invoice that the company had received, along with the purchase order that had been produced within the company, copies of the bank statement showing that the funds had been withdrawn, screenshots showing that the transaction hit the General Ledger, etc. It was a good practice task, since I think I’ll have a lot more of these to do in the following weeks as things really start to get going for the audit.
Week 1
July 20th, 2009 by moda10
Week 1 Last Wednesday I started my summer internship with the Finance Department at TGen, the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. TGen was founded in 2002, and is a non-profit institute that conducts scientific research with the human genome. Interning with the finance department of a non-profit organization has already offered a number of valuable insights. While the accounting terminology and applications are the same, the fact that TGen receives a large number of federal and state grants as well as donations (most of which come with clear stipulations), adds another element to performing and examining its finances. The office staff that I work with has been very welcoming and easy to work with. The finance department is primarily broken up into three sections: project accountants, accounts receivables, and accounts payable. While each subsection of the department has its own responsibilities and functions there is a great deal of collaboration that goes on. The department is in the process of getting ready for their yearly audit so there’s a lot of validating and number checking taking place. Three of the main jobs that I did this past week were helping the project accountants look at the unbilled accounts as well as the reconciliations, and helping put together the paper work for various cost transfers. When looking at the unbilled accounts and reconciliations, we wanted to make sure that the figures we had tied to the General Ledger and were accurate. The cost transfers on the other hand, had to do with adjusting funding sources for the salaries of various scientists. It was interesting to learn the process of doing each and the relevant Oracle functions. Oracle is the database that the department uses, and is fairly new to the department. They began using it about two years ago and with the help of ERP are constantly enhancing the functions that it can perform. It easily pulls reports based on the data that the user specifies, whether it’s an accounts payable report, report based on the project or award number, general ledger report, etc. I’ve had fun learning some of the various functions and will hopefully get to do a lot more working with the database system. I’m looking forward to this week; it seems like I’ll be busy and have a lot to do in the office. On another note, I’m starting to get used to the city although I don’t think I’ll ever get truly used to the heat. 110 degree weather almost makes Iowa’s 30 degree weather seem preferable!