Jess Halter ’13 (right) having fun on the job while promoting Chegg.
Colgate students, who interned last summer at companies such as NBCUniversal, Hukkster, Nike, and Facebook, are sharing their experiences. This post is written by Jess Halter ’13, who spent her summer with Chegg — an internship experience that connected her with a full-time career opportunity.
This summer, I interned in the communications and social media department at Chegg, a company that specializes in online textbook rentals, homework help, and providing academic scholarships. During my work experience, I learned important workplace skills, got connected in the tech world, and jump-started my post-Colgate life in the Bay Area.
During my final semester at Colgate, I joined the new Technology and Disruption course, taught by President Jeffrey Herbst and computer science professor Vijay Ramachandran. The university arranged tech-related internships in the Bay Area for class members, and I was connected to Chegg through Colgate’s relationship with the CEO, Dan Rosensweig P’15’17.
At Chegg, I witnessed how the marketing and engineering teams worked together, how Chegg responded to competitors’ actions in real time, and how teams innovated to create better products.
My roles included pitching Chegg products to bloggers and student newspapers, creating guides to help students gain important workplace skills, and writing posts for Chegg’s social channels. I learned on the job and quickly adapted my concise academic writing style to fit with the quirks of various mediums of communication.
For any company, living and breathing in the minds of your customers is essential. At Chegg, I was lucky, because I was their target demographic. In order to put college students (our customers) first in any decision I made, I constantly asked myself, “Am I creating content that a college student would like?” Understanding your customers allows you to create valuable and relevant products.
During my time at Chegg, each company executive presented to the interns, and many described the importance of networking.
This summer, a coworker’s connection helped me land my first full-time job. I’m joining the IPG Media Lab research team as a data analyst — I will focus on looking at biometric data to examine how effective different advertisements are. This position will bridge my marketing experience from my Chegg internship with my neuroscience background from Colgate.
An internship is a portal into the working world. I learned two important lessons from my internship with Chegg that I will bring with me to my new job. First, don’t let your age determine how you act — be confident in what you bring to the team. And, second, as a new employee, always ask questions and clarify tasks while bringing confidence and energy to your role.
The fall recruiting season for next summer’s internships is just around the corner. What will your internship do for you?
— Jess Halter ’13 (Fort Collins, CO)
(This article is a reflection of my personal experience and does not reflect on the values or opinions of Chegg.)