Stella Lee describes how her previous internship at Echo Nest prepared her for her current work at the BSO

As a Music Business major at Berklee, I had participated in my first internship at Echo Nest. This company is a music intelligence company that powers smarter music applications for a wide range of customers including MTV, The BBC, MOG, Warner music Group and a community of about 7000 independent app developers. It was my first experience in a real working environment. Before I started my internship, I researched everything about Echo Nest and prepared to join as an intern. The reason I chose Echonest was because it was a growing company that I could learn a variety of tasks in. While interning at Echo Nest I had to search and rate social media and gather information from databases on the application and it was fascinating to see developers coming up with new ideas everyday.

It was crucial for me to learn more about music programming companies because digital music has been expanding throughout our society. I was interested in understanding their strategies for marketing tools and how they use social media to promote their company. My basic goal was to understand the working environment and be able to adapt the working style and I sometimes observed my coworkers and learned what their roles were in the company.

Advantages of working at Echo Nest were that there were two divisions- where marketers and programmers worked in one office. Sometimes they would have conflicts between programmers and marketers where they had different ideas. However, it was interesting to see how they worked through the conflict and worked together. It was always exciting to meet new people at Echo Nest and I also met internship students from different colleges such as Tufts, MIT, Northeastern, BU and BC.

The disadvantage of working at Echo Nest was with transportation and time management. I took 16 credits and the location of the company was far away from where I lived. However, I figured out how to mange my time well and went online to find short ways to get to the company- writing down the time schedules for public transportation so I could save the most time. Also as a daily routine, I worked from 10-5pm and got home to concentrate on school material right after work. My habit of note taking always helped me build schedules and organize my priorities.

I’m currently interning at the BSO and experiences that I’ve had at Echo Nest allowed me to adapt quickly in a new business environment. Echo Nest was an organic, small department. On the other hand, BSO is strictly organized into departments that handle a variety of specific tasks. Like any other company, it is always important to recognize the value of time management! Even little tasks can be as important as your major tasks. Also, try to scrutinize what is going on around you and take it as learning experience.


Bio

Stella Lee, originally from South Korea, is currently studying Music Business at Berklee. Interested in international business and entrepreneurship, Stella hopes to someday combine her musical education and business experience to go into business for herself. If you’re interested in contacting Stella, you can email her at stella1160ATgmailDOTcom.

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