In my four years of college, I was pretty entrenched in the life of being a student organization member. In typical fashion, during my freshman year I found an organization, or ‘org’ as it is more frequently called in my country, that I meshed with in both mission and culture. I spent the next years of my college life climbing the ranks, getting department, central board, and executive board positions, while being active in various projects and initiatives to push our mission and improve our organization for the future students. When I left, I’d like to believe I left the org in a better place than when I had arrived, as is the hope of all student leaders.

Now that I’ve been working for a few years, I can’t believe I did all of that for free. Joining the corporate world makes you realize how amazing student leaders are sometimes. When you give young people a purpose and power, you are unlocking something powerful.

I remember entering the workforce in the form of my first internship, wide-eyed and ready to see how the ‘adult world’ worked for the first time in my life. It was thrilling, dressing up in corporate clothes and stepping into the office. Only to be faced with messy accountability, unstable processes, and messy Google Drives.

To cut corporate some slack, the larger an organization gets, the more difficult it must be to embed standard practices and communicate a uniform system of doing things. It must also be difficult to worry about things such as organizing and systems when there are a number of more important revenue-generating tasks to think about. So I wouldn’t say that the ‘adults’ are incompetent. There are a number of reasons why I believe the world of corporate looks like a messy bedroom in comparison to the order and organization of a well-run student org.

But alas, I digress, it is still amazing what a student leader can achieve. When I moved to corporate, it felt like a jungle. It was impossible to find files without bothering someone over email and chat, there were meetings that felt like they existed just to waste time, and project teams pointed the finger of accountability at each other over every little task. It made me miss the days of having a masterfully organized org Gdrive–arranged by year, department, and project. I missed having meeting agendas in every calendar invite, and assigning things like “logistics head” “external head” and “secretariat” so everyone in the team knew exactly what they had to do and contribute.

Now, I may be giving myself away, and my own company may just be the one that needs a lot of work. But it's still amazing that students organize initiatives that well without accepting a dime of compensation in return.

Passion is a powerful currency, and every time I remember that there was once a time I was striving for perfection without the allure of a bi-weekly paycheck. This thought is enough to take me out of the doom and gloom of being a cog in the corporate machine. I hope to one day find a place in this world where I can strive to perform just for the sake of making an impact once again.