Come meet another one of our IgnitePost interns!

Like Leo, Noel was born and raised in South Korea. He eventually made his way to Wikitsica, Kansas where he lived for about 6 years, before moving to Boston 5 years ago. That move was originally for school. Noel attends Boston University with … surprise, surprise… Luke! What a small world! The two of them are actually apartment buddies, living on adjacent floors. But it seems that Noel may be with us for a little longer. Not that we mind of course! You can stay however long you want Noel.

If anything, Luke can keep you company! Since Noel won’t have any roommates next year, he’ll have both the pros and cons of solitude. Pros: independence, zero rules, and no toes to step on figuratively and literally. Cons: long periods of silence and take-out. That last one is a big concern for Noel and probably for many other college students and working adults. Guys, don’t fall into the fast-food delivery trap! Eat well!

When it comes to food, Noel enjoys a hybrid of Mexican and Korean foods, especially galbi tacos. Otherwise known as korean bbq taco with lettuce, tomato, and coconut rice, Noel was first introduced to the dish when he was in Kansas, courtesy of the owner of the house he lived in. Given current events, perhaps this is the perfect time to do some home-cooking. But here’s hoping the fire alarm doesn’t get set off too often during kitchen experiments. Although I do have full confidence in Noel (and in Luke to rescue him if anything happens).

Maybe Noel will even add cooking to his list of hobbies, which, thanks to quarantine, now involve watching sports. Although he liked to hang out and play sports in high school, physical activity fell to the wayside as college began and there was a need to find work. Noel is currently looking into a sports management degree for his masters. Although he is an advertisement or marketing major at Boston University, he is hoping to combine both his love for sports with his career aspirations. College students will be facing a lot of academic uncertainty, but on the bright side, at least there have been plenty of entertainment and chances to catch up on games in recent months. Noel likes to watch English Premier League soccer (football) and his favorite team is Manchester United. Anyone else a fan?

At IgnitePost, Noel works as a marketing associate intern, so he works closely with the outreach department. Using enormous piles of data on other companies (potential customers), Noel goes through the information, looks at company websites, and identifies whether they would work well with us. If the answer is yes, Noel then looks for contact information of the CEO or marketing director on Linkedin. He estimates that he goes through about 100 potential customers a day and sends even more emails using an algorithm. At the moment, Noel is also working on fulfillments and making sure the penmanship robots are up to our high standards. Our robots are primarily manual at the moment so papers need to be fed in, logos need to be printed, letters need to be folded, etc.

Even without those new responsibilities, Noel has a lot of things to go through and keep track of. No wonder why he loves the coffee machine at our office. Fulfillment is also a rather satisfying responsibility rather than a stressor. It’s easy to see when the job has been done (letter sealed and packaged) so it’s easy to feel satisfied at the end of your day when you have a physical visual. The same feeling as crossing off tasks on a cluttered to-do list. Nothing like completing an order of 4,000 cards (orders and clients are coming in!) and calling it a day.

This feeling of being satisfied and proud of your work each day is part of Noel’s new life motto: “let’s just leave today.” In other words, if you do each day well and put in 100% effort, you will have that same mindset the next day and so on. Work hard today, and you’ll work hard tomorrow. Noel used to feel depressed because he worried about the future a lot. Right before he would go to sleep, he would think negatively about near and far events, such as “I’m already how many years old and I still have no settled plans.” This motto is a great way to view and handle current events. Especially as Noel’s senior year starts and concerns about academics, maintaining a feasible schedule of working and studying, staying safe, and more appears. Thinking positively and focusing day by day is a great strategy and an important mindset in the long run.

‍