How I fell in love with startups

It all started with a job shadow. I had heard about MakerSquare and a potential job shadow opportunity through my business frat (AKPsi) at U of I. I thought it would be a good opportunity to see and learn about a business in my home state (go Cali) and reached out to Shaan to set up a date to come into the SF office.

Prior to my job shadow, I had little knowledge on the existence of “coding bootcamps” let alone that there were plenty popping up around the country. In just one day at MakerSquare I learned all of that through listening to the story of MKS’s birth, sitting in on meetings with content writers, investors, event planners, and seeing classes in session throughout the day. Not only did this give me a look into the typical day at the office, but it showed the breadth of responsibilities that employees had in this growing business, which was exciting. Shaan asked me to do a couple write ups on the experience overall, and after I sent them I was an offered an internship for the rest of summer! (YAAAS gaga)

I didn’t really know what to expect coming into the internship; we hadn’t discussed what areas I would be working on but I expected that they would be varied and challenging. Within the first week I had a few different projects to work on, including writing up content, reaching out for reviews, creating mail merges, researching, what have you. I mainly focused on the reviews system in my month here, which I really enjoyed. Through it I was able to work with some of the awesome employees in the Austin office as well as learn more about the students in our SF class.

Overall my experience was amazing. It’s crazy to think how I got here through a job shadow, but looking back I’m so happy it happened.

This past month has been a whirlwind of endless Caltrain rides, hard work, corny jokes by Shaan, and the occasional shame of miserably losing a ping pong tournament.

Anyways- startups are real, they might seem risky, but they really build your skill set and give you the opportunity to succeed and be a part of something great.

…Did I mention not having to wear business casual ROCKS?