I spent my spring break touring tech companies rather than getting drunk on a random beach, and I loved it!

Last week was my spring break. To a college kid, spring break usually elicits one too many margartias, scant swimsuits, and a tan that errs on brownfishing. For me, it was touring some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent tech disruptors and minor, but mighty start-ups and midsize companies using AI without crashing and burning (something I foresee shortly with big tech pushing AI on applications that do far better without it just check r/GoogleMaps if you don’t believe me)*.

I visited Google, HP, Adobe, Genentech, Handshake, Wells Fargo, Qurrent, and Nutanix and aptly posted each day on my LinkedIn.

My biggest takeaway overall is something I heard from every company: being technical is great and all, but anyone can get there. You need to be communicative, curious, and confident. I’m sure some job-ready handbook out there has the same three C’s, but it made my day hearing VPs like Kathy Chou of Nutanix, Anneliese Olson of HP, and Janine Lee of Genentech say that someone who can ask questions, sit at the front, and be authentic is the mark of someone who will make it.

I’m an improviser and have been acting since 6th grade. It’s taught me to be unafraid, be silly, and know how to get the spotlight’s attention. I’m so grateful to the Improv Gods that saying “yes, and” and knowing how to think on the spot are exactly what I need to succeed in a tough job market.

And make no mistake, it is tough out there. I applied to over 600 jobs for this summer, and I think I’m a pretty qualified gal. But the places that interviewed me are the places I knew someone, emailed like crazy, and showed my interest.

I’m currently waiting on a job in NYC to tell me if they like me enough. If so, I’m set. If not, I’ll be in the Bay at the Human Computer Interaction Lab studying generative AI Bias. Really excited for what’s up ahead.

*Side note: I think there needs to be more formal documentation of AI integrating itself in apps that worked perfectly fine before and are now worse or more annoying because of AI pushing itself every which way. Something tells me the high computational and environmental expenses of these features will cause them to be phased out once these companies (Meta and Google) realize their users go out of their way not to use them.