Digging In: Intern Edition

Digging In is a regular series of blog posts profiling UDig employees.  We hope this series helps you get to know our team and understand why we dig what we do! 

The 2018 UDig intern class has been with us for several weeks, Amy Brick, Eric Neiman and Will Saada have been great additions to the team, dig in to learn a little more about their unique personalities and their internships! 

UDig: What school do you attend and what are you majoring in?

Amy: VCU, Computer Science
Eric: VCU, Computer Science with a minor in Math
Will: University of Richmond, Computer Science with minors in Math and Economics

UDig: What prompted you to choose your major?

Amy: Started programming as a hobby in 3rd grade and always loved it, I tried a bunch of different things but ultimately came back to computer science because I really enjoy it.
Eric: I took a graphic design course in high school as well as built my own computer and got completely hooked on technology.  I knew I would do something in tech for my career.
Will: I’ve always loved figuring out how things work, I love technology because I get to figure out how it works and build my own solutions.

UDig: What was your favorite class outside your major?

Amy: Psychology and statistics, both were very interesting and useful.
Eric: “The Choice to Go to War.” A history class, it focused on lesser known wars, the interesting or unknown facts about them and the reasons behind crucial decisions made.
Will: “Social Utopias.” A seminar class freshman year, we read a lot of books about societies and communities, it was really interesting to learn about totally different ways of life. 

UDig: Why did you choose UDig for your internship?

Amy: I really enjoyed the culture and what we would be working on.  It was exciting to think about getting to work with the latest technologies.
Eric: I liked the culture too and the challenge presented.  When I interviewed we talked about different problems that needed to be solved and the cool technologies that could be used.
Will: UDig has practices in digital, data and engineering so I knew I would get to see a wide variety of technologies and as a consulting company, we work with many different types of organizations so I’m learning about all aspects of technology. 

UDig: Tell us a little bit about the project you are working on.

All: We were given the challenge of developing a solution to help UDig employees better understand and have visibility into key metrics.  We are creating a dashboard that will display on digital signage throughout the office and show trends, current projects, upcoming projects and other critical information.

We are learning about all aspects of the business and the solution touches on digital for the design and front end, data to access and understand the key metrics and engineering to integrate, develop and deploy the solution. 

UDig: What’s the most played song in your library/Spotify?

Amy: I access all my music through YouTube and it’s usually whatever is stuck in my head.  I generally like metal and 70s/80s music.
Eric: Believer by Imagine Dragons.
Will: Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Post Malone’s new album. 

UDig: You’ve been told you have to take the rest of the day off, what will you do?

Amy: Go to the river and read.
Eric: Tinker on my home computer and play a game.
Will: Go to the James River and explore.