I’ve been with Juni Learning as a coding student for a long time now—six or seven years. So when I got the opportunity to be a marketing intern there for the summer, I jumped on board. 

Juni Learning is a tech startup in San Francisco, basically an online one-on-one tutoring program focusing on math and coding, though they’ve recently begun to offer SAT/ACT prep classes as well. Their tutors are college students. My tutors have been great mentors, and I still keep in touch with a few of them even though they’ve long stopped teaching me. If it wasn’t for one of my instructors, I probably wouldn’t have stumbled upon the fascinating world of quantum mechanics. I got tons of high school and college advice, and the coding lessons I took actually prepared me for math classes I wouldn’t take until years in the future.

The co-founder and CEO, Vivian Shen, is changing the way we perceive women as entrepreneurs. You can feel the passion she has for the company when she talks, and it’s really incredible to be around the talented team she’s assembled.

I’ve definitely learned a lot from the internship, all starting from the interview itself. I had been rather anxious before it, since at the time, I was armed with no marketing or job experience and a freshman-level education. The day I had the interview, I was sick, but being interviewed by her on Zoom and talking to her about new initiatives for Juni was an experience I will remember fondly, even if through the lens of a feverish haze. 

I hadn’t really thought of entrepreneurship as something I ever wanted to do. I always associated it with brain-numbing meetings, a lot of spreadsheets, and general misery.

But this internship changed that mindset, for sure. I’ve had to do research on the way AI startups are revolutionizing the world, and it’s thrilling to know that someone who looks like me is helping to lead the charge in that revolution. With startups, or at least with Juni Learning, there is a strong community of coworkers with creative ideas, so general misery is rarely present.

This is the first workplace sort of job I’ve ever had. This is the first job I’ve ever had. Getting my first paycheck was a surreal experience. 

I’m proud to say, after two months on the job, I can safely navigate Slack! 

As a marketing intern, I have a multitude of jobs at any given time. I conduct research by talking to people on the street, writing website copy, editing videos, sifting through feedback testing, and respecting the unforgiving monument of search engine optimization (SEO). A regular day for me is usually two or three hours of work.

What’s really great is how relevant all of the things I learned ended up being. I’ve been practicing a lot of skills that will help me with the school newspaper, like interviewing and brainstorming, as well as skills that help with everyday life. Networking is super important, and so is being organized and reliable.  

I’ve talked to people about connections between science and communication, bridges and gray spaces between math, science, and the arts, and how not knowing is okay—which is really important when you’re an intern, because asking questions saves you from a lot of trouble. These are lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

I’m continuing my internship into the school year, which I hope will let me focus on more large-scale projects. It will be interesting to see how I grow as an intern and as a sophomore at the same time.