Rounding Out Skill Sets
Like Marzulli, classmate Billy Vernon was also among the 28 SIIF recipients for the summer of 2017. The fellowship funding helped make it possible for him to pursue his passion for education through a summer internship at Oakland-based charter network Aspire Public Schools, which includes 40 schools in California and Tennessee.
Also like Marzulli, Vernon is a dual-degree student pursuing his MBA alongside a master’s degree in education. He opted to take part in a program called Education Pioneers, which matches fellows with nonprofit educational organizations in need of help—from charter networks to individual schools to Teach for America. He learned about it during a lunch and learn hosted by the student-led Stanford Education Club.
Education Pioneers matched him with Aspire, where his summer involved communications responsibilities at every level of the charter school network, from figuring out how best to convey the company’s five-year strategic plan to stakeholders to brainstorming with the marketing team on material for new teachers to writing message content for students and parents in the network.
“I chose Education Pioneers and Aspire because I wanted to get exposure to the school side of things and see what criteria various decision makers consider. “There are so many intricacies to creating a product to be used in schools—and so many stakeholders that you have to consider with education. Everyone needs to be on board, parents, students, teachers, administrators.”
He thought about pursuing an internship at an edtech firm that could convert into a full-time offer post-graduation. Ultimately, though, he weighed that against the opportunity to round out specific skill sets at a place like Aspire and made his choice.
“I am blown away by how much I have enjoyed it,” he said as his Aspire internship neared its end. “I love their mission, and the type of work I am doing feels integral to the company’s goals.” To wit, it has included working with senior staffers to define the organization’s message and how best to communicate it to donors, teachers, principals, students, and parents. “Getting that experience and really figuring out what matters to whom and how to connect with them so they understand has been great.”
A Stanford undergrad who majored in economics, Vernon spent a year working in investment banking at Credit Suisse and three years in consulting at Bain after college. But it wasn’t until he started working for educational math curriculum developer Zearn on its production and growth teams that he learned what it was like to wake up every morning and really be excited about what he was doing. “Alright, now I know I want to work in education long term,” he said to himself at Zearn. And then he set his sights on graduate school.
Confessing the possibility of an initial bias toward Stanford for business school, he hasn’t regretted returning to his alma mater. “There is just a vibe there created by this friendly, supportive, yet highly driven group of people,” he said.
The joint MBA/M.Ed. degree option also helped tipped the scales. “HBS doesn’t have a joint program like this, and I didn’t want to go to back to school if it was just to get an MBA.”
Vernon also believes that Stanford sets itself apart n terms of how it teaches the intrapersonal side of business. “It’s not just the hard skills of working in business,” he said. “I love the classes that help you understand more about yourself–how you interact with other people, what motivates you versuse what motivates others.”
Can You Say Autonomy?
Vernon’s stint at Aspire also highlighted an advantage that frequently accompanies off-the-beaten-track internships—whether at a startup or a nonprofit or a government agency. Especially at organizations when resources are scarce, interns are highly prized for their ability to jump in and get to work.
“It is really cool how autonomous my experience was,” he said. He was given clear assignments and deadlines—and more guidance when he needed it—but otherwise he was let loose to figure things out on his own. “Everyone was open to giving me the background and input I needed,” he said. But he also had lots of independence and certainly no manager requiring daily updates.
His participation in the Education Pioneers program that placed him with Aspire was also a boon, he recalled. In addition to matching interns with organizations who need them, it also provides programming to bring all its summer interns together for five days of workshops and networking. “It was great to be part of a cohort of people doing other things in the area,” Vernon said.
This is another important consideration where non-traditional MBA summer internships are concerned. Especially if you are the only summer intern working at an organization for the summer, having the opportunity to convene with peers regularly over the course of your experience to discuss and debrief can be invaluable.
Similar to the cohort of students pursuing the joint MBA/M.Ed. degree at Stanford—some of whom have taught, others who come from the business world, still others who bring community organization experience—the other Education Pioneers summer interns brought a diverse set of experiences and had a lot to learn from each other, Vernon added.
Vernon already has practice taking salary cuts in the course of his career—education roles just don’t seem to pay the same as investment banking or consulting. And though he is prepared for that trend to continue, having his summer internship salary subsidized through the SMIF program certainly helped.
And speaking of future salary limitations, that’s yet another place where Vernon has high praise for Stanford. “I have gotten so much support in choosing this path both, from my peers and in the Career Management Center,” he said.
“Obviously there is compensation trade off,” he acknowledged. “But having people supporting your decision when you say you want to go work in nonprofit or education—when you say you are turning down opportunities to go back to consulting—that is really nice.”
We hope you’ve found some useful takeaways from the experiences these Stanford grads had as a result of pursuing less traditional internship opportunities. And we’re still not done! Our final installment in this non-traditional MBA summer internship series will run next week, so stay tuned!
In case you missed our initial installment, check it out here: Break the Rules with Your Summer Internship
