The Masochist's Institute of Technologyanecdotes of an ambitious MIT student

Hey all! I see it’s been a while since I’ve blogged, but honestly, the internship life barely leaves me any time to do leisure-related things. Toss in a dance recital last weekend, ADT rehearsals twice a week, and preparations for [super secret project]… by the time I can sit down and catch my breath, it’s 10:00pm at night, and the most I can do is relax with some new age music, sleep, and then get up and do it all over again.

Anyways, let me tell you a bit about my internship at Unica Corporation!

I’m working a product management internship for the NetInsight product, which is Unica’s web analytics software. I was a bit nervous when I first came in, because I wasn’t quite sure of what “product management” would consist. Even nowadays, I’m not quite sure what it means. I’m taking on a plethora of jobs, including coding, writing documentation, undergoing TAM (technical account manager) training, etc. In fact, this entire week consisted of training and setting up a database. The latter sounds like it should be easy, but I ran into errors left and right (mainly due to my restricted permissions on the test server).

I’m really glad, though, that I’m actually working on things that will be useful. “Real work”, Chao calls it. The stuff that I’m programming will someday show up in a release; one day, I can point to the features I’m implementing and say, “I did that.” I feel this has/will be a great experience, since I’m being exposed to so many aspects of the industry: developing, marketing, strategy, pricing, management…

Goal for this summer: meet everyone who works in the Unica building. EVERYONE.

I sit in a cube right next to my “secondary supervisor” Mike Lu. He’s not actually my supervisor, but he directly reports to my supervisor Dan DeMichele. For lack of a better term, I call Mike my “secondary supervisor”, haha. He’s been really nice about answering my questions and handing me files when I need it. Many of the other employees have also been really nice to me. Franklin (who sits on my right) dropped by to say hi on the first day. Gerry, Joe, Rahman, and Corrine have been helpful in installing items for me when I don’t have permissions. I’ve befriended nearly the entire HR department, along with quite a few directors and important people like Bill Ferro and Todd Belcher. For the most part, I really like meeting new people and learning about what they do. Everyone here has such an interesting personality, and group dynamics are always interesting to watch.

The people to whom I’ve definitely gotten closest would be the new TAM hires, who are on-site for 2.5 weeks getting training and practice. Brandon Madsen (from Utah), Dustin Wallace (from California), and Anand Madhavan (from Nebraska) are some of the most amusing and fun people here. We bonded over Starburst, Milano, World Cup, and TAM training. A few days ago, we went with Todd Belcher to Web Analytics Wednesday at the Asgard Irish Pub in Central Square. WA Wednesday is basically a meetup of individuals working in or interested in the web analytics industry; I got to meet another intern at Localytics, some more Unica people, and a handful of others from around the area. It was definitely “not a haahrible moment to remember”.

Photo courtesy of Brandon (snagged it off your FB)

Unfortunately, though, the three of them will leave next Wednesday. As such, this weekend we’ll be hanging out around Boston (along with Grace, who will be in Boston for a few days with her mother, the wonderful Michelle Herman). And speaking of this weekend, boy have I got a lot planned!

Friday

• 6:30-11:00pm ~ China’s Disabled People Performing Arts Troupe at Kresge! They were the ones who performed Thousand-Hand Guanyin for CCTV!

Saturday (aka “Day of Dance”)

• 00:00-2:00am ~ MIT Mafia Society summer session #01
• 10:30-11:30am ~ Intro to Ballet class at the Dance Complex
• 2:45-3:15pm ~ ADT performance at Sidney-Pacific’s Cultural Festival
• 7:30-10:30pm ~ ACAS Chinese Dance Festival

Sunday

• 00:00-2:00am ~ MIT Mafia Society summer session #02
• during the day ~ hanging out with the TAMs, Grace, and MIT friends
• 5:30-7:00pm ~ dinner at Fire & Ice
• 8:00pm ~ Skype session with Chao! =)

Thank goodness for weekends. Without them, my life would be so hectic. Is this really what the working life feels like? It’s a little saddening but also really nice. I like the fact that after I come home from work, I’m not obliged to continue working unless I want to. Contrast this with school, where the real work doesn’t even begin until you get home! I like being able to walk home from Central Square and grab some food. I like living close to Shaw’s, where I can go and pick up some fresh fruits at any time of the day (well, before midnight). I like living a distance away from my usual friends and taking time to work on my personal development without interference. Not that I don’t like my friends (quite the contrary), but when I spend most of my time socializing with them, it’s hard to work on personal things.

I recently received an email from the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program stating that my resume was unsatisfactory and required a revision. I was directed to an online resume workshop to help me with this, and after going through the videos and slides, I was perplexed. My resume fit all of the specifications perfectly, except for one thing…

My resume is two pages long.

Cue gasps and swoons from the masses. “No way!” you gasp. “Resumes are never, ever longer than one page; you have just committed job-search blasphemy!” My only response is to roll my eyes and stick my finger down my throat to gag in mock horror. Here’s radical statement #1, guys:

Resume can be more than one page long.

It is true that sometime, long ago, someone made up the silly rule that resumes can’t be longer than one page. No matter how small you need to make your font, how many relevant experiences you need to omit, or how narrow you need to make your margins, you must never exceed that one page. It’s a terrible rule for several reasons:

1. Some job seekers genuinely have that many experiences that are necessary to document, and it’s unreasonable to ask people to “water down” their relevant experiences just to fit that one page.
2. It forces people to squish all their text together to the point of being unreadable.
3. It forces people to make their margins extremely small (0.25 inches), so that the entire page looks like a wall of text.
4. Any rule that includes the word “never” is by default unreasonable, as it presents some silly ultimatum that does not take into account the situation at hand.

My resume contains the five traditional headings – objective, education, experience, skills, and awards/honors. All items included under these headings are extremely relevant to any job for which I decide to apply. In total, my resume spans two pages, which I print out on the two opposite sides of one sheet of paper. Naturally, I place the most important information on the first page, and the not-so-important (skills, awards/honors) on the second.

You want to know what else? My resume has not failed me yet; even as a mere sophomore, it has landed me:

• A research job at Harvard Business School
• Web design jobs with two Boston-area startups
• Interviews with Unica Corporation, Microsoft, IBM, and Booz Allen Hamilton

Next time you tell me my resume is unsatisfactory, I will direct you to the above points. Let’s not make this nasty, UPOP office.