Really there was no normal day. I worked very closely with another Saint Joe’s student, so the two of us were together 40 hours a week, never apart. If we were apart it was very weird. Around the office, if someone saw one of us and not the other they’d be like ‘oh what’s going on?’
So somedays we would be in the office compiling surveys, sitting in on meetings with project managers, sitting in R&D meetings to taste test the flavors, analyzing all the data that had come back, coming up with reports and PowerPoints to present to leadership. But more normally we were at The Turkey Hill Experience which is an interactive ice cream museum. There we would have people who came in take surveys, so we’d give them usually three samples of gelato and they’d complete the survey. This summer we ended up scooping over 5,000 scoops of gelato. We also did some testing on sweet tea and lemonade as well, but most of it was spent doing ice cream.
We also had the chance to sit in on focus groups and in-home interviews through the internship. We went to Baltimore to sit in on focus groups for novelties – like popsicles, ice cream bars, and stuff like that. We would sit behind a one way mirror so we could see everything that was going on and we’d get to see what people had to say, which was interesting. We also traveled back to Philadelphia (we were living out in Conestoga) and sat through focus groups about new package designs for drinks. It was cool to have the experience traveling.
