Everybody keeps saying to me, "He's only a freshman. How in the world is he so smart? He thinks about everything, and he's done so much." And I keep telling them, that's how kids at Bennington are.

What really does impress me with Bennington students is their ability to find their own way and to find solutions to problems. And I think that's very characteristic of the kind of student that goes to Bennington, very self motivated, driven, and, faced with a difficult problem, wants to work hard to find a solution.

Almost one of the first things I said was I want one of your interns for the winter, because I knew it would be for this very concentrated chunk of time. And I knew I was going to get a creative, thoughtful, engaged young person.

I had somebody on my team that really wanted to learn management skills. So I asked him, would you want to have a field work term student working with you for seven weeks, and he jumped on the opportunity. So it was a win win situation. He was just overwhelmed with how amazing the experience has been.

When symbiosis works, it works beautifully, because the individual then contributes productively to the project. You know, everything moves forward.

So having an intern at your company does require some sacrifice, for sure. And in considering bringing in someone from a field work term, we had to think about that, because this is a really intense time for us. It's the beginning of the year, we're doing our annual planning, and there's a lot of work that goes into that and just working at Google is intense to start with.

I mean, if somebody just isn't as engaged, then a symbiosis isn't gonna work. That's a one way relationship, and everybody spends time. To be a part of a community, you have to spend time.

We have New York-based students that come in, and they'll come in like three hours or four hours and chunks here and there. And it's not as helpful for us, and I don't think it's that helpful for them. And I think what Bennington does right is A. Require that it happens. And B. They give a lot of resources.

I did have another intern earlier this year, not associated with the college, also a terrific person, but the internship was only two and a half weeks, where the field work term for seven weeks really gives students an opportunity to really dig into good complex work.

There's that flexibility of being a liberal arts student that you can understand, and you can be engaged by content almost immediately.

So I think Dylan has his own style, Janell had her own style, I know I have my own style, of communicating, which Bennington really celebrates and what you don't see in many of the other students coming out of these more traditional programs.

Absolutely, I would hire her. If I had a budget on my team, and I can bring somebody in at coordinator level, I would snatch her up in a second.

I think it really is a great opportunity for Bennington students, and I also think it's a great service and opportunity to the state of Vermont.

And I don't know what people were expecting out of him, but it's really interesting because I think he came to it with a really fresh and unique point of view and also wasn't afraid. He didn't come in with any fears about saying anything wrong. It's really been a breath of fresh air. Maybe we'll get a lot more students from Bennington now.