Oh, hey there! Thanks for tagging along for this awesome tour of a typical day for Lúcia in Detroit. Please fasten your seatbelt and keep your feet and arms inside the cart at all times.
7:00am. I wake up, after hitting snooze for a few times, and quickly realize I am not flying over the Atlantic Ocean or petting a thousand dogs at Hogwarts. I am in my room at University Towers, and I have to be careful to not wake up my roommate with this dream-to-real-life transition. I deactivate airplane mode on my phone, and spend my first 10 minutes of the day scrolling through G1, one of the most well-established Brazilian news websites. The dollar going up, our taxes increasing, some new politician being judged for corruption... During my time in Detroit, it definitely has not been a pretty view, so I decide to waste five minutes randomly scrolling through social media news feeds.
7:15am. I head to the kitchen, being the first person awake in our 4-person apartment for at least an hour (ladies, wake up earlier please). I grab one of the bowls by the sink, some vanilla fat-free greek yogurt from the fridge, and Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. On top of my work with Build Institute, I've been working as the regional coordinator of BRASA, the Brazilian Student Association, an organization that hosts at least 5 international conferences each year and impacts the lives of thousands of Brazilians in Brazil and across 4 continents. As I eat my cereal with yogurt, I reply to BRASA emails, analyze potential partnerships, and review my schedule for the week. For the next two hours, my life is BRASA. Pro tip: don't try to balance DukeEngage with another internship and your work with BRASA and a startup. Unless you enjoy waking up at 3am to call your sister to tell her about this new amazing idea you just had, or maybe to simply remember you forgot to email your supervisor last night.
9:15am. 45 minutes the time we usually leave to work, I start showering and getting ready. I usually get lost in the middle of work and miss the 9:15am mark, which explains why I am usually 5 minutes late to our bike to work.
10:00am. Actually no, because one of us is usually late, it's more like 10:05am. Marc and I meet at the lobby and walk to the MoGo station on Second Avenue. We pick our bikes, then bike for 30 minutes through Midtown, Michigan Avenue and Corktown, until we reach Build.
7:00am. I wake up, after hitting snooze for a few times, and quickly realize I am not flying over the Atlantic Ocean or petting a thousand dogs at Hogwarts. I am in my room at University Towers, and I have to be careful to not wake up my roommate with this dream-to-real-life transition. I deactivate airplane mode on my phone, and spend my first 10 minutes of the day scrolling through G1, one of the most well-established Brazilian news websites. The dollar going up, our taxes increasing, some new politician being judged for corruption... During my time in Detroit, it definitely has not been a pretty view, so I decide to waste five minutes randomly scrolling through social media news feeds.
7:15am. I head to the kitchen, being the first person awake in our 4-person apartment for at least an hour (ladies, wake up earlier please). I grab one of the bowls by the sink, some vanilla fat-free greek yogurt from the fridge, and Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. On top of my work with Build Institute, I've been working as the regional coordinator of BRASA, the Brazilian Student Association, an organization that hosts at least 5 international conferences each year and impacts the lives of thousands of Brazilians in Brazil and across 4 continents. As I eat my cereal with yogurt, I reply to BRASA emails, analyze potential partnerships, and review my schedule for the week. For the next two hours, my life is BRASA. Pro tip: don't try to balance DukeEngage with another internship and your work with BRASA and a startup. Unless you enjoy waking up at 3am to call your sister to tell her about this new amazing idea you just had, or maybe to simply remember you forgot to email your supervisor last night.
9:15am. 45 minutes the time we usually leave to work, I start showering and getting ready. I usually get lost in the middle of work and miss the 9:15am mark, which explains why I am usually 5 minutes late to our bike to work.
10:00am. Actually no, because one of us is usually late, it's more like 10:05am. Marc and I meet at the lobby and walk to the MoGo station on Second Avenue. We pick our bikes, then bike for 30 minutes through Midtown, Michigan Avenue and Corktown, until we reach Build.
Our office in Bagley Avenue
10:30am. Marc and I arrive at Build. I'm completely covered in sweat and the AC never seems enough, so I take a couple moments to recover and potentially empty the office water dispenser. After one or two minutes, we go through what we have to do for the day, and try to split the work to complete the tasks more efficiently.
11:00am – team meeting time! As we work on the table usually used for the team meetings, we don't have to move anywhere. After an icebreaker (each week, a team member is the responsible for coming up with one), each of us goes through what we have accomplished in the past week. Our supervisor, Christianne, talks about what has happened in the Detroit entrepreneurial ecosystem, and April discusses external meetings and key strategic plans. It's incredibly fulfilling to work for an organization that besides holding extremely high standards and having such a great impact, has an incredibly down-to-Earth and friendly team. After the meeting, Marc and I continue our work, which mostly consists of analyzing data and working with spreadsheets, writing company reports, and sending a couple emails here and there.
1:00pm - I don't really know how or why we decided that this was our lunch time, but it works perfectly since it allows us to go to restaurants that were completely full at 12pm. True, we don't ever pack our lunches, but it just seems counterintuitive to do so when there are so many cheap and great places to go to near Build. We might walk for 5 minutes and try $5 Chicken Fajitas at HoneyBee Market, head to our favorite Taqueria Lupita's and get $1.25 tacos, or go a bit farther to the incredible Detroit Kitchen 75 (a 10 minute bike ride, but the fresh BBQ sandwich is 100% worth it) or get some sliders at the always-full but always-great Green Dot Stables.
11:00am – team meeting time! As we work on the table usually used for the team meetings, we don't have to move anywhere. After an icebreaker (each week, a team member is the responsible for coming up with one), each of us goes through what we have accomplished in the past week. Our supervisor, Christianne, talks about what has happened in the Detroit entrepreneurial ecosystem, and April discusses external meetings and key strategic plans. It's incredibly fulfilling to work for an organization that besides holding extremely high standards and having such a great impact, has an incredibly down-to-Earth and friendly team. After the meeting, Marc and I continue our work, which mostly consists of analyzing data and working with spreadsheets, writing company reports, and sending a couple emails here and there.
1:00pm - I don't really know how or why we decided that this was our lunch time, but it works perfectly since it allows us to go to restaurants that were completely full at 12pm. True, we don't ever pack our lunches, but it just seems counterintuitive to do so when there are so many cheap and great places to go to near Build. We might walk for 5 minutes and try $5 Chicken Fajitas at HoneyBee Market, head to our favorite Taqueria Lupita's and get $1.25 tacos, or go a bit farther to the incredible Detroit Kitchen 75 (a 10 minute bike ride, but the fresh BBQ sandwich is 100% worth it) or get some sliders at the always-full but always-great Green Dot Stables.
If we are feeling healthy (lol almost never) we will try a salad at a local place like The Farmer's Hand. 10/10 would recommend
After we get back to work, we continue our work. Sometimes, we sit on a couple meetings in the office, mostly related to strategic planning for Build. We've heard about Human Resource Outsourcing, Architecture, took a tour of the Little Caesars arena construction site, and helped staff a couple events, including Detroit Open City. It's always a great time to see the results of our efforts in the organization, and to meet new people! This past Monday, we visited the arena site, and on Tuesday we helped with Detroit Open City, a mostly free forum for Detroit entrepreneurs.
A sneak-peak of the long awaited Little Caesars arena brought by you by Lúcia ;)
5:00pm. Our day at Build has come to an end, but we usually don't leave until we have finished whatever task we were working on. For me, that is usually writing one last paragraph of a report, or finishing up some calculations for our Economic Impact Report. Once again, we grab MoGo bikes and bike back. There's nothing quite like being able to breathe some fresh air and exercise after a long day in the office, spent mostly sitting in a chair.
5:30pm. I get back to our apartment, and go back to working with BRASA. At least until 8:30pm, I will most likely just work from my room to avoid noise. There's a very high chance I'll be listening to either Lady Gaga, OneRepublic, or Billie Eilish, or in a Google Hangouts call with people from all over the world.
8:00pm. I really love cooking, so I always try to cook myself dinner from scratch whenever I can. I've baked bread, made some pie, and even made some samosas. I almost never use any recipes, I just follow what I remember from the top of my head and try to put together ingredients that I think fit well together. Today, the special is Teriyaki Chicken with Coconut and Quinoa Rice.
5:30pm. I get back to our apartment, and go back to working with BRASA. At least until 8:30pm, I will most likely just work from my room to avoid noise. There's a very high chance I'll be listening to either Lady Gaga, OneRepublic, or Billie Eilish, or in a Google Hangouts call with people from all over the world.
8:00pm. I really love cooking, so I always try to cook myself dinner from scratch whenever I can. I've baked bread, made some pie, and even made some samosas. I almost never use any recipes, I just follow what I remember from the top of my head and try to put together ingredients that I think fit well together. Today, the special is Teriyaki Chicken with Coconut and Quinoa Rice.
Feeling like a real chef (or at least trying to)
From 9pm onwards, I go to Tou & Mai, an Asian mini mart and boba tea shop, to grab some Honey Dew Boba with tapioca pearls, and then head over to the gym. When I come back, I'll work on my startups, Pharos and Sânea, and spend at least an hour talking to my sister and parents on FaceTime, on top of assisting another two Brazilian high schoolers with the US college application system.
When I feel that I have talked to everyone I wanted to talk to, and finished all the work I can do before passing out on the desk, I go to sleep. I know it's a good day if I remembered to buy some cookies or keep the fridge full of cherries for that late-night snack. Alternatively, there could also be a new Game of Thrones episode or a picture from my dog waiting for me among recent messages. Either way works.
When I feel that I have talked to everyone I wanted to talk to, and finished all the work I can do before passing out on the desk, I go to sleep. I know it's a good day if I remembered to buy some cookies or keep the fridge full of cherries for that late-night snack. Alternatively, there could also be a new Game of Thrones episode or a picture from my dog waiting for me among recent messages. Either way works.
Honey Dew with 50% less sugar from Tou & Mai. This is what my DukeEngage stipend goes towards. I'm obsessed.
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