Five months ago when I started my internship hunting, I did not imagine that I could spend this summer in San Francisco. Thanks to the Small Business Internship Fund, Mr. Khurram Tahir ’01, Mr. Scott Crawford, and Career Services, I could gain the opportunity to intern with PROFUSA, Inc., a Silicon Valley startup company. When I confirmed my internship offer in April, I knew it would be the best summer I could ever have. The first month of my internship just proved my thought—I have never been this busy and happy. Although I have to wake up at 7:00 a.m. in order to catch the 7:30 a.m. Bart and the bus, I cannot wait to start my work every day.

As an Operations Intern, I spend most of my time working together with my mentor, Mr. Bruce Smith, who is the Director of Operations at PROFUSA. PROFUSA is a biomedical company with a concentration on continuous glucose monitoring. Like many other startup companies in the Silicon Valley, the PROFUSA team is science and technology oriented—more than 70% of the team members hold Ph.D. degree. While most of our team members are accomplishing goals in the labs, Bruce and I are working on accounting, finance, human resources, and other tasks on the operation side in our office.

One of the biggest advantages working in a startup company is to get a lot of exposures in many various tasks. My first project at PROFUSA was internal audit. By going through the expense reports, invoices, and bills of the company, I got to know the company quickly from a financial aspect. My second task was to set up a standardized human resources management system. Together with my mentor Bruce, I created a recruiting manual and a package of human resources management documentations. Recently I am working on monthly close and payroll with Bruce. When we finish the monthly close, I will spend more time on my long-term projects, which include creating an internal database and looking for a more efficient way for PROFUSA to document all the files. I have also done several other small projects, including creating a company organizational and a corporate biography.

I am thankful for the liberal arts education at Wabash. I feel confident because I am well equipped with the knowledge I learned from the accounting courses, economics courses, and the computer science courses that I took at Wabash. I would like to encourage my fellow classmates who are interested in entrepreneurship and startup companies to take advantage of the Business Sequence program at Wabash.

I want to thank Mr. Khurram Tahir ’01, an investor of PROFUSA, for bringing this great opportunity to Wabash. I also want to thank Mr. Scott Crawford for creating the connection between Wabash students and alumni in the San Francisco Bay Area. Last but not least, I would like to thank Jackson Ding ’11, for giving me advice on my career path and hosting me at his place during the first week when I arrived in the city. Without the support from Wabash alumni and Career Services, I could never have this great experience.