Matthew Baddour
B.A. in English, minors in Business Administration and History
2014
Like many English majors, Matthew Baddour landed his first co-op in a typical “English major” industry– publishing. Matt’s reason for choosing his first co-op was much simpler than a dreams of a career editing books: “I wanted to learn what it would be like to work in an office.” What Matt managed to learn turned out to be more encompassing than he anticipated.
“The critical thinking skills that I sharpened as an English major helped me to be more decisive and thorough when working through problems on the job.”
His first six-month co-op at Aptara (as an Editorial Assistant) brought with it a steep learning curve. Matt reported that he learned about himself, the culture of a formal work setting, the rapidly changing nature of the publishing industry, and, surprisingly, a lot about his role as a student back in the classroom. Among other things, Matt said that he successfully learned how to communicate and work with people of all ages, personalities, and levels of experience. “It moved me towards maturity.” Working 9-5 also changed the way Matt organized his time, a skill he carried back to his role as classroom student once the co-op was over.
For his next co-op, Matt handily beat out business major candidates, after a stressful panel interview, for a highly coveted co-op at Bose Corporation, a premier sound systems company. “I had never had a business role in my life,” Matt said. At Bose, Matt was a Purchasing Co-op. As the liaison between commodity managers within the Global Supply Chain organization, Matt was tasked with a variety of analytical and reporting g responsibilities. His supervisor described Matt as “beyond his years from a maturity standpoint. ….His ability to communicate to all levels (lead to) opportunities for Matt to present in front of our executives….His situational awareness is strong. He proved to be an effective listener as well as an effective communicator based on the task, audience, and situation at hand. He was a critical player during his time at Bose.”
Matt said that by the end of his second co-op, he noticed there were valuable, overarching take-aways from integrating his learning between the traditional classroom setting and a live work environment. Co-op, said Matt, made him “a more professional student in the classroom” and that outside of the classroom it “made me a more intelligent employee. The critical thinking skills that I sharpened as an English major helped me to be more decisive and thorough when working through problems on the job.”
Matt’s final co-op was at a dynamic, cloud hosting start-up company- Stackdriver. As a Support Analyst at a small and rapidly growing company, Matt worked with an eclectic group of colleagues that include computer engineers, business developers, marketing managers, and operations analysis among others. Matt’s observed “the structure of the organization, creative dynamics, selective hiring, and how well the folks who work together positively mesh together contributed to their success. The co-founders are an intelligent, highly organized team,” said Matt. “They put a plan in place and they follow the plan.” Matt’s strengths – his ability to learn new things quickly, his strong communication skills and his knack for problem solving earned him an after-graduation job at Stackdriver. “It’s a great fit on so many levels,” said Matt. “I’m excited to jump into the next chapter.”
