CHC Summer Adventures: Mukil Rangaraman, Ava Neely, and Charles Townsend

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Our summer series continues with Mukil Rangaraman, Ava Neely, and Charles Townsend. From Hollywood, CA to Oxford, England, their summer experiences are a great representation of the the wide array of interests among Honors students. Enjoy their stories!

Mukil Rangaraman

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Mukil Rangaraman is a junior majoring in math who spent his summer working as a critical care technician at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Milton, MA. 

Q: Tell us a little about your summer plans? 

A: I’ve been working at Beth Israel Hospital as a critical care technician and floated to the emergency department — so I'm doing two separate jobs, but it's under the same hospital. As a critical care technician, I work in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and oversee eight patients as well as assist their respective nurses if they need help with anything: like cleaning the patient, boosting them, and getting blood sugars. For the emergency department, I oversee the care of a bunch of patients. Like the ICU, I also clean them up a bit and if there's an emergency situation, I am there coordinating with any incoming patients.

Q: What are you most excited about regarding your summer plans? 

A: There are two different things that are exciting about it. One thing is, as a critical care tech, you get to be more interactive with the patients, and sometimes they talk to you and sometimes they don't. Conversing with patients is good because it boosts their morale and helps them get better — because if they feel better inside, they get better. For the Emergency Department, what's exciting is that there's always the thrill of a new patient coming in, and you’re just making sure everything's good. And you're always on your feet. And it's sometimes fun — I wouldn't say all the time, sometimes it's overwhelming, but sometimes it's fun to just be on your feet, taking care of different patients and then making sure everyone's well taken care of and know what they need.

Q: How did you go about finding this job? 

A: I was applying through Beth Israel mostly because it was a single application, you can go choose any position that you thought you wanted. I had to send out 40 or 50 applications initially, and then only one responded back. Luckily it was in Milton, which was the closest hospital to me, so I was happy about that.

Q: How do you plan to balance relaxation and self-care with your summer activities? 

A: My shifts are 12 hours and it's two days a week, so on the days that I'm off, I try to relax, maybe watch a movie or two, read a book and other things like that. In the ICU, I would have a book with me at all times, so whenever I can, I try to read to just calm down and relax.

Q: What are you most looking forward to for the start of the semester?

A: Honestly, I just want to be back, be with my friends, and also do some EMT stuff as well. There are a lot of things I've learned at the hospital that I would like to apply in real life to UMass EMS, and I got better at so many skills over here. It's improved my patient communication and clinical skills, so I want to see if I can apply that at UMass EMS.

Ava Neely 

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Ava Neely spent her summer living in West Hollywood in Los Angeles, CA. As an Honors student studying journalism with a concentration in public relations, she got to work on her craft by interning.

Q: Could you please tell us a little about your summer plans? 

A: I love the company that I’m working for — Michele Marie Public Relations. It’s a fashion PR firm in West Hollywood, Los Angeles. I have two other interns in my cohort, and then we are under a supervisor and our assistant editor who is coaching us. Then Michele and Jill, who are the co-owners of the company, give guidance to our days. A lot of the projects that I work on, I'm under a cohort or a pod they call it. Our pod is doing a lot of research on influencers, working to find influencers and celebrities that would fit a certain profile. So for example, they'll ask, "Find 100 influencers that have more than 10K followers and are based out of San Francisco and our fashion influencers." So my job will be to find all those people and then put them into an Excel spreadsheet.

Q: What are you most excited about regarding your summer plans? 

A: I think the most exciting part about my experience has been probably just working with a ton of different people that are famous. But it's really cool to just see all these people, they come into the showroom to pick clothes. We did Bruce Willis's daughter Tallulah the other day.

Q: How did you go about finding this job? 

A: I saw it on the UMass Public Relations Student Society of America's Instagram story, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, that looks like such a cool opportunity." And then I applied! 

Q: How do you plan to balance relaxation and self-care with your summer activities? 

A: After work, I just seize the moment. I'll walk around and just see all the sites and things that I've never seen before, and that's a really big part of my day. And it just takes out the drag of going to work, and working in an office from 9:00 to 5:00.

Charles Townsend

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Charles is a junior studying English, and he spent his summer far away from Amherst, all the way in England. 

Q: Tell us a little about your summer plans? 

A: I'm part of the Oxford Summer Seminar with around 30 to 40 other students. It started on July 1st and ends on August 11th, and it's been a total blast. We're taking two classes each. I'm in an economics and a writing workshop here at Keble College in Oxford and it's very, very interesting. I really like my classes. We do these little field trips every Friday to a different place. So we've been to Bath, we've been to Blenheim Palace, we've been to, geez, where else? London, of course, Salisbury Cathedral.

Q: How did you go about finding this experience?

A: My mom sent it to me, so I'll have to ask her, but I think she must have seen it on Facebook or Reddit or something related to UMass. She got me interested and I just followed the steps after going on the website.

Q: What are you most looking forward to for the start of the semester?

A: I'd say, just being around people and my friends again and being at UMass. That's been great. I just miss that general liveliness.