Meet the Summer Growth Team: Savannah Ardrey

G’day mate!

Savannah Ardrey is 19 years old and studies Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. She made the long trek from Brisbane, Australia to the Big Apple for her summer internship at Campuswire. After the jet lag wore off, we sat down with her for a quick chat…

Is this your first summer in the city?

“It is, yes.”

What are you excited to do?

“I really like food and eating food and just exploring all the restaurants in New York City — it’s going to be a big part of my summer.”

What’s your favorite day on campus?

“My favorite day so far has been any Monday where we have a three day weekend because everyone’s hanging around outside, doing their own thing. Specifically in the spring quarter, because it’s so beautiful outside. Basically any day in spring quarter, actually.”

What are some of your interests outside of work and class?

“Eating out at restaurants. I’m also on the rowing team at Stanford, so that’s a really big part of my life. That’s definitely shaped a lot of my time in the past 5 to 6 years that I’ve been in the sport. Other than that: sleeping when I can, and I like to read a lot.”

What was your favorite subject in middle school?

“Modern history. I loved my teacher; he always brought something new to the table every single day. And in terms of my coursework modern history was something that didn’t necessarily fit in with all the other science-y and math-y kind of classes that I was doing. It was like a breath of fresh air and I found the topics really interesting — I always couldn’t wait until the next class.”

If you were an ice cream flavor, what would you be?

“I would probably be my favorite ice cream flavor which is this lemon-poppy-seed-oatmeal-cookie flavor. I basically just like lemon flavored things and this is an ice cream flavor of that plus some.”

How many cups of coffee do you drink per day?

“Too many. I would say probably about six.”

Oh wow.

“I know. I’m kind of at this point where I don’t even drink coffee for energy or to stay awake, I actually like the taste of it.”

What is your favorite place in the world?

“Hawaii — I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid because we took a lot of family vacations there so I just have lots of happy memories.”

If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

“I get this question quite a bit, and I never really have an answer to it. But I think I would be a clam. Because I feel like clams, they’re pretty multifaceted, they do a lot of things, but they’re not really amazing at one thing. I think that as a person, well I have diverse interests — I can row and do water things — but I don’t have this one thing that I’m just awesome at that I do every day. So I think that I’m a clam.”

What are clams good at?

“Well, they can be eaten and they’re pretty good. They make pearls, they’re good at protecting themselves — got a hard shell, bit of a backbone to them which is nice — and they can communicate well with other clams. But they’re also pretty chill, they don’t really do much and just kind of hang out.”

Okay, well, I’m sold. Good case for clams. What’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep?

“About two days. Well, I took a ten minute nap does that count? We were in Italy and whenever I’m in a new country or city I just want to take in as much of it as I can while I’m in a different environment, and so to me it was like, ‘We’re in this city, it’s all so new to me, so I just want to be awake for every minute and do as much as I can in that time.’ I definitely felt it more on the third day when I crashed.

What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?

“I feel like I used to have embarrassing things happen to me on a day-to-day basis so I’ve gotten so used to it that nothing ever really stings me anymore [laughs].”

What’s your pet peeve?

“People tapping or when someone clicks a pen. And I don’t really know if this is a pet peeve, but when people are mean — not really a big fan of that. Also if people are cutting food and they make really loud noises with utensils, like when you can hear someone cutting with their knife against the plate. Other than that, nothing really.”

If you could watch only one movie for the rest of your life, what would it be?

“Silver Linings Playbook. Definitely for Jennifer Lawrence, but I just love that movie as a whole. It’s a serious movie but there’s a lot of lighthearted elements to it; it’s a great movie in general. And I’m a big Jennifer Lawrence lover. I can already quote it basically. And you can put it on at anytime — it’s not super heavy where you have to pay attention to it. It’s good background noise but you can also sit down and be just as involved in the story as the first time you watched it.”

What was your first job?

“I worked at a clothing store with my favorite clothing label in Australia which was really cool, to shop there so much and then actually work there and get discounts.”

When did you work there?

“Last year, so I was pretty old. 17 I think?”

What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge this summer?

“I guess for me this is my first internship, uh, kind of office-style job, so being receptive to the new challenges that come along with that. Also, well I guess this isn’t really a challenge, but keeping in mind and appreciating what it is we’re doing and how it impactful it can be.”

What are you most excited about for the summer at Campuswire?

“Getting to know everyone better. I’m definitely a people person and I love working with people and we have a great group of interns that I love so far and so just continuing to get to know more about each other, grow with the process and the company as it grows.”

Again, you haven’t been here very long, but what’s something you didn’t expect to see on the first day?

“Coffee on tap.”

It’s definitely nice. What’s one memory from when you were a student where you wished you had something like Campuswire?

“I think generally the accessibility to teachers — emailing teachers was kind of the main way of getting to them if it wasn’t in person, which was very frustrating because even as a student I see myself losing messages in the shuffle of emails easily, and I can imagine as a professor there’s just so much more. Sometimes I would email a professor with a problem and just never get a response, so that was pretty frustrating. But with Campuswire, a thing that simplifies communication, then it would be made just that much easier and more effective in the classroom environment.”

Thanks, Savannah!