Blog 1: Covid-19
I was working in Boston for co-op in March, when I abruptly received the 3 day notice to move out of my dorm due to Covid-19. During those few days of packing before my flight home, I emailed my supervisor hoping I would be able to work remotely and unfortunately it wasn’t possible. This was before people were wearing masks and there were little to no cases across the states. I flew home to here, San Francisco, where I got an early summer job working for a local supermarket. Seeing how the supermarket adapted and transitioned to function during a pandemic, I felt optimistic about the fall semester and hoped classes would be modified to function similarly. Many friends at home who were taking online classes went on about how some classes were significantly harder being online, largely due to everyone interacting virtually. Not being able to converse face to face with peers during class sounded like a challenge. I hoped classes would return to normal in the fall, but I understood the risk for teachers and students alike when coming to class on a daily basis.
Attending my first online class today was different from how I anticipated. Still being able to split off and form small groups or having in class discussions felt weird virtually, but also natural making it easier to adapt to this platform of learning. Initially, I viewed online classes pessimistically as opposed to in person, but seeing how effective they can be changed my mind. Additionally, having a smaller cohort allows for more engagement over Zoom leading to a more discussion based environment. I pictured online classes were going to be long lectures where you taught yourself the material, luckily this wasn’t the case. I had also previously taken a 3 hour course called Innovation last year so classes of this length were no surprise to me, even if they are online.
There is so much to learn about the beginning stages of a startup, and I am excited to absorb as much as I can from this course. So many things can go wrong when in the initial stages of forming a company together, but learning how to form a productive team at the start and build from the ground up is essential. I expect to have a greater knowledge of the do’s and don’ts of startups after lots of anticipated trial and error this semester. I also expect to learn how to form an effective team and achieve the goals we set as a unit. Distributing equity early on is a also challenging decision, and learning how to issue shares fairly is key. One of my biggest goals for this course would be to create an innovative startup with my team regardless of the outcome of our MVP. As long as we can identify a recurrent issue in today’s society and provide a viable solution to the target market, I would have met my goal. Some other goals for this course would be learning to thrive in uncertainty and identifying whether to take certain risks over others when growing.
