Senior Internships

List of 6 items.

• Max Cohen-Vigder

  Max is interning with Rabbi Ariann Weitzman, Associate Rabbi and Director of Congregational Learning at Bnai Keshet Reconstructionist Synagogue. In addition, he is also mentoring with Stephanie Bash-Soudry, Director of Institutional Advancement at GOA, to fundraise for Asher Ruach Bo, an Israeli program for at-risk youths.

• Noah Feldman

  Noah is interning with Jacob Kotler, owner of Jake's Car Care.

  Working at Jake’s Car Care I have learned three valuable skills in tidiness, efficiency, and resourcefulness. Located on Eagle Rock Avenue, Jake’s Car Care is no stranger to the 50,000 residents of West Orange. An auto body shop does not take long to become extremely filthy and it is imperative that it remains clean. My main role as an intern is to keep workspaces orderly so the mechanics remain efficient, as without me they are responsible for cleaning their own area. With my help, the shop is able to become more efficient than usual leading to better customer service. 

  Any auto body shop has tons of unused car components, tools, and necessary fluids such as lubricants, coolants, motor oil, wiper fluid, and many others. Organized storage for these fluids is absolutely necessary as in order to remain efficient, the mechanics need to locate and apply the apparatus quickly to finish fixing the car as soon as possible. It is my responsibility with assistance from my supervisor to organize the appliances in a systematic fashion in order of necessity, frequency of use, and/or numerical labels. 

  Along with essential interior equipment, exterior components also need to be organized nicely. Tires often get thrown into the back of the shop after their use has been fulfilled, however they still have their uses and need to be put into a methodical place to at least look useful. Along with the old tires, new tires are ordered in by the shop to be applied to cars in need of a tire change. These tires are located at the entrance for the customer to examine when entering the shop. The tires are ordered by size and expiration date so it is easy for me or a mechanic to identify at the time of a tire change. 

  Working at the garage has not been without its educational benefit. I have learned how to change tires, remove the rim from a tire, put cars on lifts, and the overall functionality of cars. I have also learned how to change oil, along with the other fluids and where they are located under the hood. I have also learned to drive more carefully and precisely. Since there is limited space in the garage, many of the cars awaiting pickup are parked outside the garage either in the driveway or at a separate parking lot. Because of this, the cars need to be moved into the shop overnight to avoid theft. Packing all the cars into the small garage comes with its difficulties, but at the end of the day always gets done. Driving backwards was always a challenge of mine, especially when the space is tight, but I have learned to utilize every angle I can get in order to park it safely and compactly. This involves utilizing mirrors and even sticking my head outside the car window to see every little detail. 

  This has not only been a great educational experience, but I have new skills that will be of great value to me later in life.

• Marin Gold

  Marin is interning with Dina Zunic at Prestige Academy of Dance.
  
  -------------------------------------------------------
  MARCH 15, 2021
  
  

  I have been having such a fantastic time working for Prestige Academy of Dance. I've learned a little more about the ins and outs of running a dance studio and how vital the behind-the-scenes parts are in keeping the studio active. 
  
  

  Most of the time, when I'm at the studio, I help prepare the costumes for the stage scheduling and practices and clean up. As I expected, a good amount of the job includes cleaning the mirrors in the studios because it is an essential part of keeping a studio prepared for students to come and dance in every day. I have helped prepare the students for competitions, including ones that will happen in March and April 2021. I am also helping with the organization of old costumes and figuring out efficient ways to sell them to people who need them for dances. 
  
  

  Besides the costumes' organization, I also have to steam dozens of different costumes and distribute them to dozens of other students. It's an opportunity for me to meet all of the people who go to my dance studio on a more professional level rather than as a student. I am in charge of most class costumes, and I have the last say on whether the outfit is ready to be distributed. 
  
  

  One of the most exciting parts of the internship has been learning about how to prepare for a dance competition. There is so much more that goes into a dance competition aside from the dances. I didn't realize that the teachers had confrontations with the competition owners to get all the students registered and participated in each event. Things such as uploading music to the competition database are so much more complicated than I had initially thought, which makes me feel very thankful for my teachers who have been doing it all these years. I also got to participate in a competition as a teacher rather than as a student. It was such an extraordinary experience because rather than frantically dancing, I got to sit and watch with my fellow teachers. 
  
  

  Sitting with the studio owner and fellow teachers gave me a view of what they do after a competition occurs. Rather than just going home and going to sleep, they have to file and organize each student's award. I had the job of distributing and managing each award, which was much more complicated than I had expected it to be. It shows that our studio is very well trained because there were so many awards to organize. My favorite part of the competition experience was listening to my fellow teachers thoughtfully discuss the dances and helping to take notes on their critiques. 
  
  

  As I mentioned, my internship allowed me to travel with the studio to multiple competitions throughout February and March. My supervisor told me that whenever I wanted to go to the competition, all I had to do was tell her I was coming, and she was more than happy for me to help her in her frantic day at the competition. My mother tried to go with me to a couple of the competitions, but due to COVID restrictions, she could not come. It was exciting being on my own at a competition for the first time in 12 years of competitive dance. 
  
  

  One of my favorite parts of the internship so far has the bonds that I've created with my supervisor and colleagues in the workplace. I feel as though I have bonded with these people even though they have so much more experience than I do. They've begun to trust me with more significant tasks such as selling used furniture online. Seeing a change in my dancing skills is also a significant plus to the internship experience because since I am now at the studio for many more hours, I have the opportunity to practice on my own. I find that my work ethic is also greater when I am in the studio. Also, I got some free food out of it because now, as an intern, I am considered a part of the "Prestige Faculty"!
  
  

  I am super happy that I chose to intern at Prestige Academy of Dance, even though I live there at this point (and might as well bring a mattress). I truly get to learn the ins and outs of a dance studio from the perspective of both the student and the teacher, which is something I would not have been able to experience until later in life. I get to help both the younger kids and my peers, and will be learning about the financial aspects of the studio next week. I'm super excited for the months to come and for all that I will learn!

• Aaron Gutterman

  Aaron is interning with Corina Sowers Adler, Artistic Director at NiCori Studios and Productions.
  
  -------------------------------------------------------
  MARCH 15, 2021
  
  

  For the past few weeks I have been interning at NiCori Studios & Productions, a theatre company in Bloomfield, NJ. There are four semesters per year that consist of cabarets with professional performers and musical theatre classes for kids and teens. Their current winter semester, which can not be performed outside due to the colder weather, culminates in two livestreams: The NiCori Kids in A Grimm Afternoon With Aesop and The NiCori Teens in In The Next 10 Minutes, which actually opens the night that I am writing this blog! 
  
  

  The characters in A Grimm Afternoon With Aesop were almost all animals, so one of my responsibilities was to incorporate masks that represented each animal’s face into the costumes. I learned valuable skills in costume design and budgeting, and it was very rewarding to see the cast wear the masks for the first time. I was also tasked with creating a logo design for the production which was used in lots of promotional material.
  
  

  I worked closely with the production manager to figure out all of the problems we would need to solve in order to successfully broadcast the show from Oakeside Bloomfield Cultural Center, or “the mansion,” where NiCori operates. The livestream would be a combination of pre-recorded and live media, so we needed to work out how to accomplish both. We knew we would be limited to using one room of the mansion, the solarium, for the live segments, but we realized we could take advantage of many of the other rooms to film everything that was prerecorded. 
  
  One of the rooms was a voice studio, which we transformed into a recording studio. We set up a camera, microphone, audio mixer, and cabaret backdrop, and my job was to sit behind a plexiglass wall and monitor the audio balance between the performer and their background track. We also had the opportunity to use some of the other rooms in the mansion to record scenes in a different environment, which is one way the pandemic surprisingly improved the production. 
  
  

  When it was time to start working on the live sections, the process remained fairly similar with a few added challenges. We needed a more reliable internet connection, which we achieved by running a very long wire from a computer in the solarium up to the router on the third floor of the mansion. I also learned how to use Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), which allowed us to livestream to YouTube and switch between live camera feed and pre recorded media in real time. After we had solved all of those problems, we could start getting more creative, like using a real courtroom as a virtual background for a courtroom scene.
  
  My most interesting story so far is from this week. Using a Zoom call and a green screen, I edited footage to make three distanced actresses look like they were sitting together in a movie theater.

  
  Beyond helping with the technology for the two productions, my other main responsibility is to write a weekly newsletter. While most people at school know that I am passionate in theatre, they may not know that I am also interested in marketing and graphic design, so the opportunity to gain experience in all of those fields at once was exciting for me. 

  
  In the future, I will be helping out with the spring semester, which includes performances with in-person audiences for the NiCori teens and professional cabaret artists. It also looks like I will be producing a commercial, so I look forward to sharing more reflections on that in my next blog.

• Connor Pollack

  Connor is interning with Thomas Kulikowski, Maintenance Supervisor at New Jersey Y Camps.

• Matthew Rothschild

  Matthew is interning with Jeff Watson at Golda Och Academy.
  
  

  -------------------------------------------------------
  MARCH 25, 2021
  
  Although I just recently began working for Mr. Watson, I have enjoyed working with him, and have already learned a lot. We will be working for GOA, and I am already helping with some projects that are in progress. For example, this week on Monday and Thursday we went to the Lower School campus to record for the 1st grade Siddur play. In the future, we will also record for other student plays and projects at the Lower School. In addition, we will be creating websites for some of our projects, such as the Science Fair and Biography Day. 
  
  In order to start these projects, I had to learn multiple pieces of software, one of which is Adobe Audition. Audition is the audio program that I am/will be using to edit audio. Despite my unfamiliarity, it wasn’t too hard to learn because I was already familiar with other audio programs. However, I did have trouble learning where everything was located within the program and I had to learn the keyboard shortcuts for Audition, which took a while. While I had some ease learning a new audio program, I also had to learn two new video editing programs.
  
  Adobe Premiere is one of the two video editing softwares I needed to learn for this internship. Again, learning this program wasn’t too hard, but that was because of the software’s built-in tutorials, and relatively small number of features. In my opinion, Premiere is more of a video sequencing software, that has transitional effects, rather than a video editing software. When it comes to actual video editing, and video effects, Adobe After Effects is the better software. I also had to learn After Effects, which has proven to be difficult. Mr. Watson describes After Effects as “the Photoshop of video software.” I would completely agree with him, after spending some time using the software, and given the trouble I have with Photoshop and utilizing all of its features. I expect to have more trouble using this software. After Effects is more complicated than Premiere, because it includes keyframes for animation and special effects.
  
  So far, I have had a few jobs. My first job was technically learning the software, but my first actual job was to create a template for a website with Google Sites for Biography Day, a day in which second graders dress up as famous figures and talk about their famous figures' lives. The website was planned to be an alternative to actually holding the Biography Day in person, with video recordings of each student reciting their information. However, this decision might have changed. Regardless, the website will be made. I expect that there will be the choice to go to Biography Day, and if someone can’t, they will use the website. The website will consist of separate pages for each student, which will show them in costume, and will have their videos that they recorded. On the main page, the students will have their school photos, and names to show what they look like outside of their costume.
  
  Another job that I have is related to on-campus recording of the Siddur Play for the first graders. I was joined by some fellow seniors at the Lower School setting up tripods, cameras, and a microphone to record the first graders singing their songs. We also set up lights and a green screen inside the cafeteria to record the students for a montage. For the singing, we set up two cameras on tripods outside in the parking lot. One is placed in front of the kids and is fitted with a wide-angle lens, and the other is simply placed diagonally in relation to the kids, in order to fit everyone in the frame. In addition, someone uses a handheld phone gimbal to get moving shots. Next to the camera placed directly in front of the children, we set up a table with a Blue Yeti microphone, and a computer fitted with Adobe Audition to record audio.
  
  This internship has already taught me a lot about video production, audio editing, and website design. I learned how to use multiple pieces of software, and through tutorials, I learned how to edit audio and mix vocals to sound better. I also learned that Google Sites is a tool open to everyone, which helps with creating websites that look and feel competently made.