My journey as a Product Manager at Bits of Good
I struggled to find my niche at Georgia Tech for the longest time; before BoG, I bounced around extracurriculars, rarely spending more than 2 semesters at each one since nothing I found really stuck with me. You know that saying about Tech, where you only get to choose two of three things from the Holy Trinity of enough sleep, good grades, and social life? My experience with clubs at GT has proven quite similar, albeit with different corners.
In my underclassmen years, I set my bar pretty low. I thought that as long as my extracurriculars satisfied one of the three corners of the triangle, that it meant that it was worth my time. I saw it as a sort of “tax” (if you will) to pay for being in a field of study despite harboring a deep-seated aversion for its default career path. Few activities gave me the kind of rush I got from lifting weights under the bright lights for GT’s Powerlifting Team, but the guilt I experienced from neglecting my professional pursuits led me to pivot tables late into the night in front of a Bloomberg Terminal as an Analyst for the Investments Committee.
And when I burned out yet again from doing something I was only doing because I felt like I should be, my pendulum swung back to the other end, where I was indulging my joie de vivre on the football pitch or under a bar of weights. So by the time I stumbled into Bits of Good with only 3 semesters to go before graduation, I was expecting no different.
It only took Launch Party (our big kickoff bash, for those uninitiated) for me to realize that Bits of Good was markedly different from all of the other organizations I had joined at Tech. Yet the palpable buzz in the Garage (BoG’s de facto headquarters) from Launch Party never faded as we transitioned into our weekly routines. Within a few weeks, I found myself spending more and more of my time with my BoG peers, not because I had to, but rather because I surprisingly found myself having fun around them. My peers at BoG are diverse in their interests, incredibly passionate about what they do, impressively qualified students, and compassionate to boot. And Bits of Good made it easy for me to get involved with the community immediately and to connect with said peers, in part through weekly 1 on 1 “donut dates” (where you’re paired with a random club member for a coffee chat), fun weekly meetings, game nights, and retreats.
In addition, Bits of Good encourages its members to pursue what they’re passionate about. It’s been extremely easy for me to sate my curiosity sitting in on design critiques or shadowing engineering bootcamp. I have seen plenty of members join BoG as developers or bootcampers but find their niches in product, marketing, or design, and Bits of Good always strives to accommodate its members. Our former Executive Director James always champions his preference for passion over skill and experience, and his philosophy continues to shine through at BoG.
I have made so many BoG memories in such a short period of time that my eight months in the club have felt like an eternity. I would be hard pressed to forget the sheer excitement of Launch Party, the camaraderie of team outings and BoG-wide retreats, the hundreds of hours spent in meetings (in-person at first, and then on Bluejeans), and of course the hyperactive Slack and Discord that have only gotten more lively as the pandemic took hold.
In addition to connecting with the BoG community, I’ve never felt more connected to a mission than in my time being a Product Manager at Bits of Good. Since my team worked with MedShare, a nonprofit with headquarters in Atlanta, my team and I were actually able to meet the people that we were working with and spend a few hours volunteering with them. Seeing all the flags of the different countries and the photographs of places and people that MedShare impacted hanging on the walls, sorting by hand through the countless medical supplies, and building relationships with the very people that would later use the mobile application we developed all helped me realize that I was helping real people passionate about making the world a better place.
Being the MedShare product manager was really the first time in my life where I felt like all my skills were being put to the test. I’ve bounced around a variety of technical and non-technical roles, and the PM role at BoG was where I found my happy medium — a place where I could talk to clients and see a project through from start to finish but also exercise the skills from my classes at Tech.
BoG is one of the few organizations at Tech where I found a product management culture. While it wasn’t a necessary addition to the original developmental goal of the club, there’s an underlying willingness here to carve out new roles, give people responsibility, and do things differently than other clubs that makes Bits of Good so amazing to be part of. This ethos has also led me to meet plenty of people at BoG with varying interests, from UX researchers and graphic designers to web developers and product managers that have challenged and inspired me to be better. And while my journey to Bits of Good took nearly three years, a century in college years, its impact on me has been immeasurable.
