In PricewaterhouseCoopers, I was part of the Deals department. In that department there were many groups and one of them was the start up team. I was allocated to a project lead by the Director of the Department and I was asked to do mundane/internship tasks such as working on Excel and building a database of Venture Capitals in the EU and in the USA. But I was also asked to conduct researches of Italian start ups and make a selection of the ones that I would consider, based on data, the best suited for investment from PwC.

This was my first work experience and, since I did not really apply for it the conventional way, I was far from making the most out of it.

Spoilt, I didn’t realize how hard it was to get into these big companies and I completely took it for granted.

I ate alone and made no effort to socialize or to go the extra mile.

There was a colleague of mine who would take some time to explain to me numbers and data analysis and I was showing him how bored I was so that he would stop and leave me alone to do my stuff. If only I had my brain now but oh well…

Sometimes you forget what an opportunity looks like and you end up throwing away a great one.

I did not want to be there, I only did it for the CV and I made the classic mistake of thinking that “if I have this name on the CV, then that’s enough for getting through other application processes later on”.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

Doing the bare minimum, slowly and not showing any kind of will to do more is what unfortunately most people do in their day to day job.

They go there for a superficial objective, for instance the salary (in my case, the PwC line on the CV), and do not get fully involved with the activities and hundreds of opportunities they can create for themselves every day.

I didn’t know that I was being so mediocre at the time.

You will realize in my next blog post what attitude got me to places.

My PwC experience was nice on the CV. It gave me “something” to showcase beside my position as an event organizer for student nightlife…

However it was far from enough: it was a unconventional summer internship (see this blog) and lasted less than 3 months. I just couldn’t base my applications for grad schemes based on that only real experience… it was embarrassing. And I wanted to be like Femi (refer to this blog).

I therefore decided to take a Year in Industry. I always knew I wanted to take a 4 year course at university, so that I would have more fun and prolongue my student status. But initially, I applied for Business and Management with European Studies.

That meant that, in my 3rd year, I would have gone to a University in Europe and study there.

Although the idea to party in a different city was an absolute fat YAS for me, I decided against it as I realized I needed more experience in the work field.

I realized in PwC that I was bored at my desk job and I really wasn’t aspiring in ending up at a desk later on, working on Excel.

I thought it was a waste of a life. But at the same time I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

One of the biggest lessons I learned at that time is that, if you do not know what to do, you need to get yourself out there and actually try new things until something clicks with you. Hence the decision to switch to Business and Management with Industrial Experience.