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This post was written by Fjorela Dardha our Marketing intern from Bolzano Italy through the M31USA, internship placement program:

I am Fjorela, a student of Masters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Free University of Bolzano in Italy. As part of a project funded by the European Social Fund, I was given the unique opportunity to visit Silicon Valley for six weeks in order to get an insight into ways of doing business in the world leading hub for high-tech innovation.

In particular, I had the chance to do a month-long internship in the Marketing department at FirstRain. From the very beginning, I was warmly accommodated and walked through the team’s overall responsibilities and upcoming projects. What really impressed me was how much people cared to make sure my experience in this start-up would be as beneficial as possible. They involved me in different meetings and group activities and were always asking about what I was doing in Italy, curious to hear about my impressions on the differences between European and American culture.

FirstRain is characterized by a very flat organizational structure and the team appears to be enthusiastically committed to a common goal while making the working environment a great and fun place to be in. I felt that particular attention was given to diversity, which is seen as a valuable component and is reflected in the team composition. I was unexpectedly invited to celebrate the end of their financial quarter, which offered me the unique opportunity to witness how much passion and love people can feel for what they are doing while still finding time to have fun among colleagues. During the party, I had the chance to eat and drink with the whole company, getting to meet people from all over the United States. I even got involved in a Sumo Wrestling match! “It’s an intern tradition” – they said…

Overall I consider this experience to have been extremely valuable and positive both from an educational and personal perspective. I had the opportunity to learn new tools such as Salesforce, which may turn out to be useful for my future career, and got an extensive picture of how start-ups work in the Bay Area. Moreover I was able to get some insights and real life examples of management in highly innovative environments as start-ups tend to be, where the decision making process is very quick and people have to constantly adapt to new circumstances. I consider myself very lucky for having been part of such a great and motivated team and for having had the occasion to create contacts and discover potential future career opportunities.

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