The Startup is You
By Derek Simpson When I first started at Oregon State, I didn’t think of myself as a “startup.” I thought of startups as tech companies or people trying to launch some new app. Over the course of this class, the idea actually started to make more sense. The whole point was that a startup is something that’s growing, changing, and figuring itself out. When you look at college that way, it kind of fits. You’re building something over time, and that something is you and your future. If I imagine myself at the end of my time at OSU looking back, I think the biggest thing I’ll realize is how important flexibility was. When I first started college, I thought the path would be pretty simple. Take classes, graduate, and then move into a career. But as the class talked about different pathways and ABZ planning, I realized that most successful paths aren’t perfectly straight. They involve adjusting when things change and being willing to try different approaches. During my first term, I set a fe...
