My Job

I have been at Nickelodeon for two months now. I am working as a Research Analyst / Assistant. (I am only doing bits of analysis now, and lots of whatever needs to be done.) As of September 10, my seven week job was extended to December 28. I now get full benefits, medical, dental, pre-tax metrocards, and 401K. With the new job I enter the adult world of figuring out what all of this means.

My job is for a new Nick Jr. show called Bubble Guppies. I can’t post too much about the show, only what is already on the net because it hasn’t been officially released. But here is a peek at the show about mermaids…I mean Bubble Guppies.Bubble Guppies, an interactive, animated variety show for preschoolers set in a vibrant 3D, CGI-animated underwater classroom.

I am loving what I do. We take the scripts and test them before they are animated, in order to make recommendations for posible changes. My job is to take the scripts and condense them to a protocol that we will test. This is basically a picture book. The research artists will then illustrate the protocol and create a flash movie (a book on the computer). We take this to preschools where we read the story and show the pictures to 3, 4, and 5 year olds. We observe and record everything the kids say and do. Then we interview them briefly after the story, to find out what they thought. We ask about the story, the appeal, and play the interactive games one on one with each kid.

This information is all entered into spreadsheet that are analyzed, and the findings are presented to the writers and director. We want to make sure the kids are interacting during the games during the reading. And also that they are not too easy or to hard. There are usually three levels, so that all kids in our age group will get at least on right, and hopefully learn through repeat viewing. If the analysis shows that kids don’t understand, or didn’t participate, we have to come up with possible reasons why and suggestions for change.

I do most of the data entry and bits of the analysis. I also enter numbers into the reports and format them fore presentation. The most important part though is I have my own cube with a phone number and everything. I also have an MTV email address (Nickelodeon is part of MTV networks, which is all owned by Viacom) but I am still waiting on my computer to arrive. It is currently somewhere in limbo. I think that about explains my new job. I’m hoping this isn’t too much information. It’s always been so had to explain what I do, this may be the easiest job yet, and it’s still tough.