Blogging about the BOC w/Jake Yosafat

Hey guys,

While you may not know it, chances are, if you’re reading this blog, you’ve read a lot of the stuff I’ve written this summer. As the BOC Intern, I’ve been the person primarily in charge of the upkeep of the blog, the BOC Facebook page, and writing new HTML content for the BOC website’s company listing.

While not an official member of the Tepper Interns blog team, I though it would be a good idea for me to lend some insight into what it’s like being part of an internship program that is less formal and in which you are working for a lot of individuals who already know you. Chances are that many of you will be faced with the potential situation of working for a small business or interning at Carnegie Mellon. Here is my take on the whole situation.

The hardest part of the job is autonomy. Being the only individual on campus working for the BOC day in and day out doesn’t lend a lot of oversight to the process. I decide when to come in, when to leave, and how many hours to work (within reason of course). No one is here telling me what to do each day, whether it is researching additional companies, writing recruitment letters, tracking down bad debt from past conferences, it is largely up to me. I can guarantee this is not going to be the case with most internships, but I can attest that it is a great exercise in self-motivation.

The other primary challenge is coordinating all the committee members. This summer we have had directors in the Eastern and Central U.S. time zones, the United Kingdom, France, a semester at sea in the Mediterranean, Rwanda, India, Singapore, China, Malaysia and Indonesia. Having to coordinate email schedules and cycles of productivity has lent insight into what transnational corporations must go through on a day-to-day basis.

I can assure you, I along with the rest of the Committee have been working to make this the best conference in years. We are already ahead of where were last year on company recruitment and we have six times as many high-level sponsors as we did last year. The BOC is still a mammoth operation, so I encourage you to get involved. Attend, volunteer, interview for a director position. I continue to look forward to September 16^th, as I’m sure you do to.

Until Then,

Jake