It’s been over a decade since I graduated from Drexel University with my Bachelor of Science in Marketing & Finance. I’ve been fortunate to have held 9 different roles at 10 different companies (as of August 2019) and feel like I’vebeen in control of my professional development. Although it’s been over a decade since I’ve been out of college I can still attribute much of my current mindset and success to my college experience.

Drexel offered a 5 year co-op program, which meant that my first year of college was 3 terms (13 weeks each) from September to June, followed by three years alternating between full time internships from October to March, then full time class between April to September. Finally, there was a grueling 1 ½ years of classes (or 5 terms) to round out my degree.

The co-op schedule was the first thing that prepared me for post college life.

Tests and assignments that had a material impact on my final grade started at the end of the second week of classes. I enjoyed my first couple of terms of being away from home but that caught up with me by the end of my second term as I flirted with a sub 3.0 GPA. I earned a scholarship at Drexel, but if I fell below a 3.0…poof, there goes that scholarship. I got my shit together and realized that I had to try even harder to get back to where I needed to be (I graduated with a 3.5, earning the cum laude distinction). Lesson learned here, the work will keep piling up whether you’re in a hole or not, so better to not fall behind in the first place. When you’re constantly behind in college you’ll cheat yourself out of the time/energy needed to learn new things (in and out of class), developing meaningful relationships, and taking care of your body & mind.

Fast forward to the summer of 2002. Unlike most of my peers who got their fall internships in the earlier A and B rounds, I was going head first into the final C round. If I didn’t get a job now then I’d have to go back to class and lose out on the experience. After countless submissions I had secured an interview at CTN Solutions, a small IT consulting group, as a sales intern. At this point I didn’t care what the internship was, just as long as I just got one.

Picture a small two story office building with a vacant first floor and top floor looking like it came out of the show “The Office”. To this point my work experience included working in a warehouse packing children’s clothes when I was 15 (got my work permit on my birthday), retail apparel (Gap, Eddie Bauer, American Eagle), grocery checkout, and a pizza shop between November – April of my freshman year. Looking back it wasn’t that bad but here’s another lesson that I learned early on.

Having professional experience on your resume before earning your college degree helps set you apart after graduation.

Having applied what I learned in my UNIV 101 course, I nailed the resume writing and job interview at pretty much the last possible moment before having to go back to class. On my first day I wore a tie, got to the office extra early, had 3 medium cups of coffee from the Wawa across the street, and smoked a half pack of parliament lights before 8AM. I was given a desk, chair, phone, and a call list. There was a binder on my desk as well with CTN’s sales collateral. Matt Kirby, VP of Sales, was a patient boss. He taught me our value proposition, how to effectively share it, and then left it up to me to develop my script. I realized at that moment in time that I was going to be cold calling for the next 6 months. I was reaching out to small and medium sized businesses in the greater Philadelphia, South New Jersey, and Delaware region to provide managed service agreements (MSAs) for their IT needs. Think about it this way, CTN sold a recurring technology management service to the local coffee shop to ensure their point of sale (POS), wi-fi, loyalty programs, and back office software for scheduling, inventory, bookkeeping, etc. worked so business owners can focus on their business, rather than all those other things. After about 2 weeks I was confident in saying that the job sucked. However, looking back on the experience I believe that those 6 months helped me with the following…

• Developing a thicker skin (being yelled at and hung up on was physically painful)
• Appreciate the role of sales (e.g., complex problem solving, understanding how people think)
• Never to underestimate an experience because of how it looks like on the surface

I have to give special thanks to my dad who urged me to keep at it and don’t give up after I said that I wanted to quit. He made it clear that if I could cold call then I would be up to do anything after that, and he was right.