Box Diversity Scholarship 2017

Once upon a time, a couple weeks ago, five brave college students arrived at Box headquarters in Los Altos, California to interview for the first annual Box Engineering Diversity Scholarship. The scholarship, which Box sponsors “to promote diversity, from any angle,” awards one $20,000 grand prize and four $4,000 prizes toward tuition for five students who bring diverse perspectives to their engineering communities.

We had each applied for the Box scholarship just a couple months earlier, and, since being chosen as the five finalists, had traveled between 3 and 3,000 miles to be at Box. Ahead lay four days of meeting fantastic people, eating great food, and making new friends. At the moment though, I think most of us were a little preoccupied with the four hours of interviews that were about to start…

We headed to Box, and following a quick lunch, the interviews began. As promised, they consisted of three technical interviews and one leadership interview, in random rotation. We each also had time to shadow a member of the Box team, who showed us around the office and gave us an idea of what daily life is like at Box. At the end of the day, feeling a little exhausted but very accomplished, we headed down the street to the Counter for burgers and milkshakes with more Boxers, including the members of the scholarship committee.

The next morning we were back at Box, but this time our group had quadrupled! Box timed our scholarship weekend to overlap with College Day, when students with internship offers are invited to visit. We had a full schedule, which kicked off with a presentation by Sam Schillace, VP of engineering at Box. Sam was approachable and friendly, and hearing him talk about his reasons for joining Box after founding several successful startups was a great reminder of all the possibilities in computing today. Next, we were each paired with a Boxer for the all-hands lunch, complete with updates from team leaders and the much-anticipated presentation of the diversity scholarship. Jessie, Namrata, Omar, Priscilla and I filed onto the stage where Sam introduced each of us to the entire company and, after building the suspense, announced that I had won the grand prize! It was a surreal moment, made even more exciting by the knowledge that I was surrounded by my new friends and such a supportive community. Obviously the first thing I had to do was call my parents (they’re so proud!), and then we all tried to settle down for the remainder of the day.

The next event was definitely special - we had an hour to hear a presentation by Box CEO Aaron Levie. Of course, as soon as Aaron entered the room he looked at the presentation queued up in front of us, announced, “you can learn all of that stuff from Wikipedia!” and turned off the projector. Instead, we spent an hour talking and laughing with Aaron about everything from our own lives to strategies for growing a company to his music selection for Box’s annual holiday party. Afterwards, the different teams at Box ran an “open house”, where we got to walk around and talk to members of each team about the work they do.

At dinner that evening, we paired up with Boxers and got to meet an even larger subset of the company and gorge ourselves on more food than anyone knew what to do with.

Saturday was our last day at Box. Our College Day friends had already left when we got in a taxi headed to the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco. Once we got there we met with a few Boxers and went on the most amazing Edible Excursions tour around the Ferry Building. We got to try amazing local food including bread from Acme, cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery, salted caramels from Recchiuti Confections, and honey from beekind. It was such a delicious and unique way to end our weekend!

Overall, our weekend at Box was an incredible experience! We made friends with other college students, met so many awesome Boxers, and came away with the feeling that Box really cares - not only about promoting diversity, but also about each of us individually. I also want to extend my personal thanks to everyone at Box, not only for the scholarship, which is such a significant help towards pursuing my education, but also for the genuine hospitality everyone showed us. Every person I interacted with made my trip that much more of a rewarding and positive experience. Also, a huge thanks is in order to the scholarship committee, and everyone else who put so much time and effort into making our weekend the informative, inspiring experience that it was.