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Loki may be the new pup on the block, but he aspires to be the Top Dawg in the agency. When he's not busy optimizing his ball retrieval time, you can find him licking people's faces; a personal passion for him.

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Get to Know …the Vovia Interns!

It’s been a busy summer for our interns at Vovia. We’ve had the pleasure of getting to know three awesome students who spent the summer working alongside us. They learned from us, and maybe not-so-surprisingly, we learned from them too! Before they head back to school, one of our resident pooches, Loki, got the chance to chat with our interns to get some insight into their summers with Vovia and where they go from here!

interns

Loki: What is your role at Vovia?
Matt: Marketing Technology Intern
Nate: Marketing Intern
Conrad: Accounting Intern

L: What school did you come from?
All three: University of Calgary

L: What are you studying?
Matt: Computer Science, and hopefully later Software Engineering
Nate: Marketing
Conrad: Accounting

L: Describe a typical day in the office for you.
Matt: Writing custom code usually, mainly in JavaScript. This is for various projects to help make everyone’s lives a little easier. This has ranged from sorting data within a Google sheet to creating a web application to eliminate the need to skim through 100s of spreadsheet tabs to find ad specifications. And of course every day has a brief lunchtime ping pong game between the interns.
Nate: A typical day for me at the office includes managing my accounts and ensuring that campaigns are running smoothly. My day is also spent assisting my co-workers with various tasks, attending meetings, and furthering my understanding of analytical tools and digital media platforms. During lunch, you can always find me squeezing in a couple games of ping pong too!
Conrad: Depending on the time of month, a typical day for me can range from processing payable invoices, receivable invoices, bank reconciliations, digital media account reconciliations, and cheque runs. When I am not doing those, I am usually doing a side project that Jessica or another co-worker has assigned me.

interns first day

L: What is your favourite thing about the internship?
Matt: The experience and the knowledge gained by interacting with many of the team members has been priceless in my opinion. I learned more about marketing, analytics and SEO than I thought I was going too. I have found myself to be most interested in the analytics and SEO work I was able to do as they worked closely with some of the code I was writing.
Nate: My favourite thing about the internship is that I get to experience all the teams here at Vovia. Being able to work with each department in a media and marketing agency has given me a better idea of what I want to specialize in once I graduate.
Conrad: I got to know a different industry outside oil and gas that I did not know existed in Calgary – marketing. I got to see what work is done in a media marketing agency. Specifically, I enjoyed learning about how accounting is done in the media industry, as it varies from industry to industry, which has helped me grow individually and in my career.

L: Tell me about something you do outside the office!
Matt: I am an avid freestyle skier, and during the off season I usually go to my cabin to wakesurf.
Nate: When I’m not working, I like to hang out with my friends and spend time outside if the weather is nice.
Conrad: I play volleyball at the Volleydome on Fridays.

intern bbq

L: Let’s go back a little bit. When did you first know that you wanted to be an intern?
Matt: After my second semester at university I wanted to find a job that had practical application to work that I want to be doing when I graduate, so around April is when I decided to look for something in the marketing/computer science sector.
Nate: It wasn’t until after I had completed my first year at university that I had the desire to be a summer intern. I spent some time talking to my fellow students, as well as the academic advisors, and I realized just how valuable an intern work opportunity can be. Having experience in your field outside of the classroom as well as making connections through work is really important for securing a full-time job after graduation, which is my goal.
Conrad: It was a last minute decision, I was planning on travelling and having a laid back summer before going back to school. But this was an opportunity that presented itself for me to see an industry I was not familiar with and decided to go for it. Plus, I decided I did not want to be bored out of my mind when I got back.

L: We know you’re headed back to school soon – what will you tell your schoolmates about Vovia?
Matt: Despite my friends being fed up with hearing about how much I enjoy working here and seeing all of my ping pong games and barbeques posted on various social media platforms, I will still tell them how enjoyable it was to work at Vovia. More specifically, I will tell the world how friendly, knowledgeable and entertaining all of my co-workers are.
Nate: I will tell my friends that Vovia is a great place to work. It has everything thing that anyone could possibly want: office dogs, ping pong, candy, and a nice patio! Everyone that works here is very friendly and helpful, which makes getting answers to questions and learning new things easy!
Conrad: I would say that Vovia is a good company to work for, they care for their employees well-being, co workers and the culture is amazing.

L: Finally, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Matt: I would love to start my own software company in the future! I have had a passion for programming ever since I was twelve. I love bringing tools individuals or groups can use that make their lives easier and less stressful.
Nate: I am very entrepreneurial minded and eventually I want to run my own business. I like the control as well as the challenges that come with it. I have learned a lot from running my own property maintenance company and I’m itching to start my next venture!
Conrad: Isn’t it a little too late to be deciding what we want to do when we grow up? Ha-ha. Something I wanted to do as a kid was to become a computer programmer, I was always intrigued with how programs could be created with code and the whole general idea of creating something from nothing and that really amazed me. I should have hung out with Matt more this summer!

Thanks for a great summer to Matt, Nate and Conrad! Think you’d make a great intern? We may be bringing this program back next summer, so check for postings in the spring of 2019!