Max Karen '18 @ NBC Universal

After a fifteen minute car ride to the station, an hour long train ride, and a 25 minute walk through the bustling streets of Manhattan, I arrive at the doorstep of the massive building that is home to NBC Universal. I was feeling apprehensive and definitely had a newfound respect for the people who make that commute every morning. I obtained my visitors pass and took the elevator up to the 31st floor. After speaking with the receptionist, I was told I could wait in a seating area. Shortly after, the other two externs arrived and we chatted about our commute and what the week might have in store. After a few more anxious minutes of waiting, we were led into a big conference room with a number of people sitting around a massive table. Everyone introduced themselves and gave a little background about their life. Some of the people joked with one another and I began to feel more and more comfortable. Then Nick Johnson introduced himself and told us about how after graduating from Gettysburg, he worked at a handful of different places before ending up at NBC. It was intriguing and a little reassuring to hear about how someone who was in a similar situation that I’m in now landed at such an amazing company in a great position. After the meeting we were each assigned to a different department. I was given the opportunity to shadow a number of people in the Ad Operations department. At first “Ad Ops,” as it was referred to, was a little overwhelming being as it is a very computer oriented department. After sitting with a few Ad Ops employees, I began to grasp a number of the concepts and it became more interesting once I understood how it worked in to the bigger picture. At Ad Ops, coordinators essentially take files (either picture or video), which they call creatives, and set them so they show up in the correct places at the right times on the NBCSN website. It sounds simple but it is actually very complicated. One of the coordinators even had me follow a long list of instructions and go step by step to set a banner and video ad to appear on the site. So if you happen to be on their website, you may see an ad that I set to show up. In the following days I sat with employees in three other departments (sales, sales planning, and marketing). Every person I met could not have been nicer and everyone was happy to answer any questions I had. Now having gone through all of the rotations and spending a week there, I would consider myself lucky to work at a place like NBC Universal.