In spite of my usual blogging long-windedness, I’d like very much to encapsulate my experience in this program with one succinct lesson I’ve learned. I chose to participate in this program to find out whether whether the tech startup lifestyle, which SOUNDED good in theory, was actually something I would enjoy living. My concern with it, as with many of the other professions that I considered, was whether I could actually, day in and day out (and for much longer days than in most professions), sit down and do work. I always (well, except for freshman year) got my work done in school, but I also tried my best to optimize some sort of minimum effort for maximum reward equation. That sort of attitude is something that just doesn’t work with startups at all.
But I had high hopes that the combination of exciting work environment, and exciting, meaningful work would motivate me. I knew that whenever I was excited about something, I was a hard worker. I just didn’t know whether a startup could actually create that excitement like I thought it could.
In the spirit of succinctness, yes. It could. And much more so than I expected. I have been able to put in 7 day weeks of 14 hour days without finding myself checking out or watching the clock. I ended up having to force myself to go to sleep at 4 AM many, many nights. Â Awesome.
DEC & DSVIP SV Summer Experience 