College Experiences That Helped A Senior Program Manager At Deliverr Succeed
To prepare for a successful career, Nicholas suggests undergraduates seek out opportunities like teaching assistant roles with professors to gain "early working experience" and understand "person to person relationships". Further, involvement in fellowships, like the university Innovation fellow program, and student organizations provides valuable leadership experience and diverse perspectives, helping one "figure out...are these things that you want to do".
Leadership Experience, Mentorship, Design Thinking, Community Engagement, Career Exploration
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Nicholas Fong
Senior Program Manager
Deliverr
UC Merced, 2014
None
Economics
Technology
Strategic Management and Executive
Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School
Video Highlights
1. Working with professors as a TA provided valuable experience in administration and early work experience, and also allowed for mentorship and guidance.
2. Participating in fellowships, such as the University Innovation Fellow program, offered a design perspective and exposure to prototyping, which is beneficial in early careers and startups.
3. Engaging in student clubs and organizations provided leadership experience and opportunities to work on real-world projects, such as microfinance initiatives, which helped build empathy and understanding of challenges faced by small business owners.
Transcript
What did you do in undergrad to set up for success in your career?
I was lucky in a couple of ways when I was at UC Merced, working with some professors. One of the professors I worked with was Professor Teofanas. He kind of took me under his wing, and I was a TA for corporate finance.
That helped me gain a lot of out-of-classroom experience and early working experience. So, one piece of advice I'd have for undergrads is: if you have the opportunity to be a TA and work with professors, do it. They've got decades of experience.
Even if it's not within the private sector, those experiences help you understand how to manage person-to-person relationships. You need that in whatever organization you're in. If you have the opportunity to work with professors, I think that's huge.
Secondly, look into fellowships. I was a University Innovation Fellow, a program run by the NSF and the Stanford d.school. That helped me gain a lot of design perspective.
It taught me how to think about leading with design and prototyping. That helped me a lot in my early career in startups. Being exposed to that early on, even just the exposure, I think helps to improve thought processes and helps you realize what you don't know, making you think faster on your feet.
Third, join clubs and other organized student organizations. I think it's an opportunity to get some leadership experience. Those could be volunteer organizations.
As an undergrad, I did Engineering Service Learning, and we worked with KivaZip. We looked at local businesses and provided them with micro-finance loans. I was pretty deep into that in my junior and senior years of undergrad.
I think there's a wealth of resources if you want to grow yourself. It also helps you figure out if these are things you actually want to do. There was a time when I was thinking about going into academia, and talking to my professor was really helpful for that.
The fellowship was helpful for me to think about tech startups. I wouldn't have had that opportunity if I hadn't been nominated by a professor.
Working with small business owners, like landscapers or cleaning services, and understanding the challenges they face daily was valuable. It taught me how to empathize with them, as someone who didn't truly know what their day looked like.
Honestly, I mostly spent my time in the university's ivory tower. I think these experiences give you a very real perspective. Those are really helpful out-of-classroom, or halfway in-classroom/halfway out-of-classroom, experiences you can lean on when you're in school.