By Judith Salgado
When I walked up to the office, I felt overwhelmed by the number of young adults there. My mentor works as a strategy consultant in the sales team. As I was getting a tour of the company’s office, I stepped foot there not knowing what major I wanted to do or what I wanted to pursue. As I looked around I noticed that it was not like your typical office that you would see in city. It was calm, peaceful, and the team’s communication was great.
Packback is a startup company that helps students with any questions that they are having trouble with. Packback mainly targets colleges and universities. It is a website that is very helpful to professors with more or less than 200 students.
The company was first featured on Shark Tank along with the idea of having published books for only $5 per day when it is used. The idea started because as college students many of them don’t use their textbook(s) until they need them. Packback helps save money for books and it’s a useful tool.
When arriving at the company it gave the impression of how organized and structured the place was. There were four sections which are the sales employees, the back, the managers, and the engineers. The sales staff help professors with how the website works and how they can engage students in class. After, they are transferred to the back room where one of the staff members would assist on how to move forward with Packback. The engineers make sure that the website is still running perfectly without any glitches. The team is currently working on updating the website. Not to mention that they also have a office pet named Pepper.
A group of mentees and I got the opportunity to sit down in a room while listening and watching the staff have a meeting about future plans. I was able to speak with one of the engineers on the team who is a software engineer. He did coding in order to update the website and to start on new improvements. He also gave me links to websites where I can learn how to code. Thanks to MENTEE, I now have an idea of what major I want to pursue.