Tag: University of Illinois

My Summer Internship at the McKechnie Family LIFE Home

June 03, 2024 | Praachi Mudar, University High School

Praachi Mudar (in pink) said she enjoyed working with Wendy Rogers, center, and the LIFE Home team. (Photo provided)

Before this summer, whenever I thought of robots, I thought of the clunky Disney robot WALL-E and his mission to save mankind. I didn’t have any direct experience interacting with robots or the components involved, so my only point of reference was a kid’s movie. This summer Dr. Wendy Rogers and Dr. Harshal Mahajan gave me the opportunity to intern at the McKechnie Family LIFE Home. I spent my summer with social robots, assistive robots, home appliances, virtual reality and other technology that are used to help people’s daily lives, which completely changed my understanding of robots and technology. 

One of my favorite parts of this experience was interacting with the social and therapeutic robots—Moxie, Jibo and Paro. I had engaging conversations with Moxie about celebrity book authors using her generative AI. In the game Circuit Saver, I saved Jibo’s motherboard, and in doing so, learned about its camera and motion sensors. I also experienced Paro’s calming effect when petting it. It was especially exciting to have the freedom to interact with the robots in ways that interested me, like getting to play games with them or talk about my own interests. It was incredible to not only learn about these robots’ capabilities but also see how they can assist people with daily tasks like grabbing pill bottles or talking to their family from miles away.

The most challenging part of this experience was coming into a space I had so little knowledge about. For the first few weeks I struggled to understand basics, like how to start up the robots and navigate the robots’ interfaces, but I was surrounded by patient and knowledgeable people who helped me understand and learn. By the end of the internship, I was knowledgeable about most if not all of the technology. I likely wouldn’t have enjoyed or learned as much if it hadn’t been for the support I got from Dr. Samuel Olatunji, my supervisor; Abbey Paik, an undergrad intern; and Yvona Vlach, the operations coordinator.  

As I got more comfortable with the robots, I really enjoyed doing demonstrations and sharing information about the robots with people on tours. Almost all of the technology had an immense amount of research surrounding it. The research I learned about the most displayed the ways these robots can help people who face social isolation and older adults who need help with basic tasks. It was exciting to explore this growing field. Even more so, I enjoyed sharing this knowledge and explaining the research being conducted with these robots at the LIFE Home.

This summer has been an incredible opportunity that I am so grateful to have. It has genuinely made me more interested in the intersectionality of technology and applied health sciences.

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RST student aspires to future in baseball front office

August 16, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Diego Acosta, a senior in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism in the College of Applied Health Sciences, is aware of the well-worn axiom, “Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

RST senior Diego Acosta spent the summer as an intern for Prep Baseball Report

The Skokie, Ill., native worked this summer as an intern for Prep Baseball Report (PBR), one of the top independent baseball scouting services in the country. Acosta plans to go to graduate school after he graduates in the fall, but he aspires to work in the baseball operations department for an MLB team.

Like many scouts you might have seen on TV while watching a baseball game, Acosta carried the tools of the trade—a stopwatch and a radar gun—and loved every minute of it.

“I obviously have a passion,” Acosta said about baseball. “And if I have a passion for it—we were learning (that it is) statistically proven that workers that have the biggest passion for what they do will move up higher and faster than anyone else that doesn’t have a passion for what they do.”

Acosta’s love for baseball began when he started playing the sport at four years old.

“I just kept (playing) until I blew my knees out. And when I was looking to go to school, I wanted to play baseball. I knew that I wanted to keep it as a part of my future someway, somehow.”

Acosta was recruited by Cornell University to play baseball before he hurt his knees but felt a natural inclination to the University of Illinois.

“I have a long lineage of Illinois alums,” he said. “My parents went there, my uncles went there, my aunts. I’ve been going (to UIUC) since I was a very young kid, and I just wanted to keep it in. So I decided to just go to school and see what I can do with the baseball team there.”

Thanks to his connections to Illinois, Acosta caught on as a bullpen catcher for the Illini baseball team, which fed his fire to stay in the sport. And, Acosta said, the courses offered in RST are a perfect springboard to a career in sports. He particularly enjoyed Clinical Associate Professor Mike Raycraft’s RST130 (Foundations of Sport Management) course, RST354 (Legal Aspects of Sport), and RST199 (Sport Brand Management), taught by RST Assistant Professor Jules Woolf.

“I feel like when it comes to the business side … there’s definitely times where I’m just like, ‘I remember talking about this in this class, but I’m seeing it here with the whole PBR thing. The Future Games is a perfect example. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Well, this is exactly– we talked about the brand and everything with Dr. Jules Woolf.’ And it’s genius. You bring everybody. You have every single state bring the entire country to one place, and you put on an event in one place across the entire country. It’s absolutely genius.”

For many RST students, a career in the sports industry is the ultimate goal. Some aspire to the customer-service side, some to the hospitality section, and others to the management sector. After all, who doesn’t want to be general manager of the Cubs? But while Acosta definitely dreams of being in a big league front office some day, he is ready to pay his dues first as a baseball scout, an often-grueling job with long hours, low pay and not much notoriety.

“I have a long lineage of Illinois alums,” he said. “My parents went there, my uncles went there, my aunts. I’ve been going (to UIUC) since I was a very young kid, and I just wanted to keep it in. So I decided to just go to school and see what I can do with the baseball team there.”

Diego Acosta

Student, Recreation, Sport and Tourism

“You’ve got to start at the bottom,” he said. “That’s the very first thing I figured out working with PBR, is there’s going to be some really, really, really long days. I was at a tournament in Rantoul from 8 in the morning until midnight. And I get back home, and the Cubs were playing. And I was staying at my apartment with a couple of my buddies that were there for the summer in Champaign. I was like, ‘Put the Cubs game on for me, please.’ And then they were like, ‘Uh, you just watched almost 13 hours of baseball. How do you want to watch the Cubs game?’ I was like, ‘I just want to watch the Cubs game.’ ‘They were like, you’re crazy.”’

Acosta is realistic, knowing how competitive working in the sports industry can be. That’s why he plans to pursue graduate school, possibly law school, upon graduation this fall.

“I have, basically, a plan B,” he said. “And my plan B would be some type of lawyer. I mean, my mom and dad have always joked, ‘Why do you argue so much with everything? Just go be a lawyer.’ I’m like, ‘Honestly, I might.’”

As much as he loves the game, Acosta wants to work in baseball for a reason larger than his appreciation for the sport.

“I’m Mexican-Colombian … and I grew up playing in Humboldt Park, which is like all Puerto Ricans and inner city kids, and then Homer Park. So I have a lot of friends from all different backgrounds,” he said. “And if I can do anything for kids like that, especially in other countries, because I’ve been there. Especially in Colombia, I’ve seen the slums. I’ve seen kids playing with rocks and sticks in the street. And if I could really help them get to their ultimate goal, I feel like that would be really cool for me to do. So that’s why I sort of want to be in professional scouting.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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RST student Javier Maldonado talks about how COVID changed his summer

July 28, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Students in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois have had to adjust their internships because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Periodically, we will speak with them about how those changes have affected their summer plans and potentially career paths. Javier Maldonado expected to work at a field house in Chicago, but instead was part of the inaugural Illini RST Undergraduate Consulting (IRUC) program, created by RST department head Carla Santos and clinical assistant professor Mike Raycraft. He talked to AHS communications about his experience working for The Specialized Marketing Group and the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.

Q: How are your experiences different from what you expected?

A: My experiences are very different from what I had expected from my internship; I expected something where I would be hands-on and not behind a computer screen. 

Q: Are you doing something different for your internship than what you originally planned?

A: No, not from when I found out about this internship and what it would be like. Since it’s begun, I don’t believe I have done anything different then what was originally planned. 

Q: Does your internship lead you to think about a different career path?

A: It doesn’t necessarily drive to a different path, but it does open up my eyes to different fields within my major. 

Q: What happened to your original internship?

A: I was waiting to hear back from a field house in Chicago but because of COVID-19, they didn’t know how many people they would actually need. Unfortunately, because of time, they weren’t able to give me an answer. 

Q: Has anything been frustrating about your change in internship status?

A: The only frustrating part is being at home and having to work from home.

Q: What are you missing out on because of the pandemic, in terms of working face-to-face with people?

A: I feel like face-to-face is the biggest thing I am missing out on; I am a very hands-on learner and would have liked to learn from a professional face to face. 

Q: What advice do you have for future students who might have disrupted internships?

A: The advice I have is to try and maintain a positive view on things. It’s going to be hard when things don’t go the way you expect but making the best out of situations goes a long way. 

Q: What other ways has COVID-19 affected you? Have you traveled? Have you been able to go home, see family? 

A: COVID-19 has just been a bummer and being stuck at home all the time hasn’t been fun, either. 

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinosomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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RST student Matt Maguire talks about alternative internship

June 22, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Students in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois have had to adjust their internships because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Periodically, we will speak with them about how those changes have affected their summer plans and potentially career paths. Matt Maguire was supposed to work for the Chicago Cubs in their premier services department in Chicago, but instead was part of the inaugural Illini RST Undergraduate Consulting (IRUC) program, created by RST department head Carla Santos and clinical assistant professor Mike Raycraft. He talked to AHS communications about his experience.

Matt Maguire, a senior in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism in the College of Applied Health Sciences, loves baseball, especially the Chicago Cubs. So he was eager to begin his internship with the Cubbies for a second year this summer, working in their premier services department in Chicago.

Then, the world stopped. COVID-19, which entered our consciousness in January, was acknowledged as a pandemic in mid-March and resulted in a shutdown of most industries beyond the most essential. Baseball’s spring training was halted March 14, just two weeks before planned Opening Day. 

Maguire knew what was happening, and that his internship being in peril was among the least of his worries. That didn’t temper his disappointment.

“I had to take that time realizing, ‘OK, there’s not really a spot for me right now. They’re definitely not worried about me right now when there’s no baseball going on,'” he said. “So it took a while, but I was finally coming to grips with that as it was coming down to the end. OK. This really isn’t going to happen.”

Maguire needed an internship to graduate, as do all RST students. Luckily, RST department head Carla Santos and clinical assistant professor Mike Raycraft collaborated to create the RST Undergraduate Consulting (IRUC) program. IRUC is an opportunity for graduating RST students to connect with industry partners and agencies to provide pro bono, (and remote) consultation, and report on a variety of special topics. The students work with organizations, such as the Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and Niagara Falls, in three-week cycles and they have a deliverable product at the end of that cycle. Each student must complete two cycles, and the program runs through July 31.

For Maguire, although he had to work remotely, the IRUC still gave him a chance to work with the Cubs. Grouped with two other students, Maguire worked under Megan Gaesor, manager of event operations for the Cubs and an RST alum, working on marketing research.

“It was kind of, ‘How are we going to bring fans back to Wrigley in a safe way? How are we going to have staff feel safe coming back to Wrigley?,'” Maguire said. “And then also, what type of events that we could put on at Wrigley Field during that time because right now it’s just really an empty space. So they needed to find ways to use Wrigley Field, and they asked us to kind of do some research and figure out what people would want to see what was feasible for them to do.”

Maguire and his fellow interns communicated via text each day, with the project due to Gaesor at the end of the three weeks, and he emailed Gaesor once or twice a week. Ideas included using the marquee outside of Wrigley Field as a message-delivery system for local charities, as well as for thanking first-responders for their efforts fighting COVID-19.

“We came up with ideas like having a high school showcase (at Wrigley) for a lot of the (high school) players that had the season canceled because of the coronavirus,” he said. “So it would just be a nice way to get their recruiting a push, as well as having the local community in Illinois feel like the Cubs are really reaching out to them and supporting them in their endeavors.”

Maguire said the plan he delivered to Gaesor was well-received, and as of June 19, he had finished the first cycle and had moved on to working with another RST alum, Mark Thomas, longtime western district director for State Parks of New York, which includes Niagara Falls.

Maguire describes himself as a positive person, and sees the bright side of this alternative internship.

“I’m definitely more open-minded than I was before,” he said, before adding that he still wants to work in baseball. “But now I’ve come to realize there’s so many different ways that you can really get involved and still learn skills in a different firm that can go ahead and make you better as a person and as a worker and that you can bring to really the organization.”

Still, there is no doubt Maguire missed what he was looking forward to about his traditional internship.

“I’m a hands-on person. I like doing stuff. I like moving around all day.  I’m not really doing much, but it’s still fun. And I’ve had a really good time doing it, but I do miss the hands on experience.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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