Defining Persistence

Arvin Dang | Oct 23, 2012

We want to see what your past struggles have taught you. We want to know when you hit the same in-descriptive error, you'll do everything in your power to find the right answer, and not give up. Learning web development isn't easy, and you'll experience moments where you feel dumber, slower, like you're walking backwards. But that's where real learning happens. Right between the state of complete frustration and finding the path to your solution.

It's easy to see the accomplishment and forget the labor. We want to mitigate that. We want you to relish the toil and use it as fuel to work harder. To better understand what you've already challenged through, we asked applicants, 'Tell us about a time when you almost quit something, but chose not to."

Here are snippets from our favorite responses:

"We were out of money, were working around the clock, saw our business shrinking, and couldn't dig ourselves out of the hole because we couldn't sell much wine (it was still too hot to ship!). We could have quit, paid off our debts over time and been done with the headache.

Instead, we reduced our staff and I took on the work of two additional people. We got creative, we invested more in organic marketing, and we worked harder on customer service. Within 7 months, the business was back on track and it began to flourish again - actually, it came back even stronger. Working seven days per week, I had led the charge to keep the company alive. It was the most stressful work I have ever done, but it was completely worth it." -Monica Bettencourt

"I was close to quitting the [swim] team in 2006, after two years of racing for the Northwestern Wildcats, but my pride got the best of me. I decided it was better to pick myself up off the ground and continue to work hard than to give up something that I loved to do. Once I stopped focusing on my times and started focusing on my passion for the sport, my times improved, and so did my faith in my ability to overcome challenges." -Katie Braun

"When I started, I couldn't run more than about a mile at around a 12 minute per mile pace. Within a couple months I was up to 5 or 6 mile runs at around 10 minutes per mile. With the running and slightly healthier food choices, after only about 6 months, I had lost about 35 pounds. I was happy with the improvements I had made and considered cutting it back, but I had made a goal of finishing a half marathon. I kept at it and on a chilly morning only a couple months later, I was running in the NYC Half Marathon." -Geoff Massanek

"Once I stepped in to a puddle. It was much deeper than I expected. Shoes covered in mud, I walked into the client's office with so much enthusiasm, he didn't look down once." -Veronika Goldberg

People sometimes equate persistence with endurance. It's far from it. You can endure being miserable, stuck in a job, repeating the same task day after day. Persistence, on the other hand, is a struggle you continue to learn from. It's a moment of adversity that pushes you forward. In struggling, and with persistence, it only gets easier with practice.

If you're ready to face our challenge, join us this Summer.