Alexander Lau

Yesterday was a perfect example of a challenging yet rewarding experience the Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship provides.  I was 30 minutes outside of Valparaiso University Thursday evening driving from Indianapolis for the career fair, when it hit me.  I was the lead recruiter for the Orr Fellowship at Valpo.  There was not an experienced HR person by my side to be a crutch.  Instead, I was given the responsibility alongside my roommate and current Orr Fellow, Max Yoder.  This is the perfect example of the types of roles and responsibilities offered to Orr Fellows as part of this program.  These are roles that place fellows in challenging situations that help them grow as young professionals. 

Another example of this is at Apparatus, a company that has grown immensely in the past 2 years.  I was given the opportunity to help create a position for internal processes by planning, implementing, and now, soon to be training a new hire for the position.  To have this sense of ownership is quite rewarding. 

The 5 points I made for joining the Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship in my previous blog have all been met or exceeded.  But a characteristic I failed to foresee is the entrepreneurial aspect of the fellowship (even though it is part of the name of the program).  When I started in June, I focused on the day-to-day work, the small projects I was placed on.  3 months into the fellowship, I can honestly say that my mind has been transformed from this day-to-day mindset to more of a visionary.  By that I mean, I'm asking myself questions like, "Where is Apparatus heading?  How did it grow from a 1st stage entrepreneurial company to a 2nd stage?  And how will it handle expansion to the 3rd stage of entrepreneurial growth?" 

I am a believer that people are influenced by their surroundings.  Because of the exposure to the business leaders and entrepreneurs of Indianapolis, it is hard to maintain that day-to-day mindset without seeing what is going on as a whole.  This has been a truly rewarding experience and is the characteristic of the Orr Fellowship that has enhanced my first occupation out of college.

By the way, I am a tennis/Rafael Nadal fan.

Vamos Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship!!!

What’s up every one.   My name is Alex.  I graduated from Valparaiso University this past May, and joined Apparatus back on the 14th of June as part of the Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship.  I moved into an apt. in Broad Ripple on the 10th of June.  It was a pretty quick turnaround from graduation.  I had pneumonia between graduation on the 14th of May and moving to Indianapolis.  That being said, I was very excited to get started because of being bedridden for so long.  For fear of jinxing my experience, I have been hesitant to express how much I have enjoyed Apparatus and the Orr Fellowship.  I’m going to focus on the Fellowship for this blog.


Reasons for joining the Orr Entrepreneurial Fellowship:
   
   
    -    My strengths met Apparatus’s needs currently, as well as 2,3,4 years down the road
    -    Large breadth of experience
    -    Exposure to many parts and different skill sets of a company.
    -    Social Network in a new city.
    -    2-year commitment.


After 2 months of working and attending Orr Fellow events, I’d like to make a couple comments on a couple of these expectations.  Closer friends of mine from my home state of Minnesota have had some difficulties transitioning from school to work.  Reasons include being in one position, and being in that position indefinitely.  I have had some type of time commitment/goal since I was 5 years old (ie. elementary school; high school; college).  It was tough imagining a stage in my life that “had no end” unless I said so.  The fellowship provides that two-year commitment.  It also provides a social atmosphere that eases the transition from college to the blob called work.  I’m not saying that if you join the fellowship, you will have no struggles transitioning from school to work, but I will say that it helps.  In my next blog, I will talk more about how the fellowship has enhanced my first job out of college.