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It follows Smits’ education in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises with English and textual studies, his job search during the recession, and a mindset shift from “That’s Nonsense.” The conversation covers his recruitment and in-house roles, a pivot to e-commerce and selling on Amazon, and how remote, location-independent work shapes his career. 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One such memory is from a particularly frustrating study hall. I couldn’t supervise it in my own room, soit was moved to the library, and I had to contend with trying to get work done, while being supremely aware that study hall students were scattered all around the room. I couldn’t keep as close a watch as I was used to on students needing aprod to stay focused on homework and study. It was around 2005, and the cellphone was just becoming a nuisance. Some students had them, but they were not something that was part of each student’s appendage. I looked up from my work and saw a student fiddling with his phone. I asked him to please put it away, and he said,“Why?” As I felt myself getting a trifle irritated, my Senior Leader (a student assigned to assist me with crowd control) stood up, climbed up on the library table, and began torecite the poem he had memorized asa class exercise his freshman year,“The world is too much with us, late and soon/ Getting and spending we lay waste our powers/ Little we see in Nature that is ours/ We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon…” Except for those beautiful words of William Wordsworth, the library was silent, but as Taylor Smits ended with the final words, all the students clapped. And as he climbed down from the table, he said to the student: “what Mrs. Hancock is trying to tell you is that  \ntechnology is getting in the way of living and feeling”. I was impressed that after 3 years, he still remembered all the words of that beautiful sonnet, but even more importantly he knew what those words meant—the reason I had always had students memorize a sonnet—so they could pull it up in a critical moment, showing their understanding of the experience.  \nI was interested when Taylor told me that after going to Canterbury for six years and graduating in 2005, he went to Syracuse University and graduated with a major in Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises but with a minor in English and Textual Studies. Many who graduated from university in 2009 had it tough—it was the height of the recession. Taylor admits that he spent the next six months at his parents’ house, desperately trying to find a job. When he came home  \nfrom a fruitless interview in New York, he told a friend of his father that it was because of the economy. The response of“That’s Nonsense” changed his mindset—he realized that when it comes in Taylor’swords to“jobs, romantic partners, or living in a city you love…you only have to find one.” That mindset reframed the task at hand and soon he was employed. Taylor became a recruiter,“I was first an agency recruiter and then I went in-house for a women’s media company called Refinery 29…by most people’s standards I was successful, but I realized that I was actually miserable on the inside. I wanted to find a position where my input, ideas, and decisions mattered.” Fortunately, in retrospect, Taylor got laid off, and he promised himself that he wouldn’t interview anywhere for 6 months.“That was my opportunity to finally start my own business and that’s when I got into e-commerce and selling on Amazon.”  \n26 | Canterbury Today  \nA L U M N I  \nPresently, Taylor is the co-founder of [MyFBAPrep.com. The company has](MyFBAPrep.com. The company has)[ ](MyFBAPrep.com. The company has)a network of over 50 warehouses internationally and handles prep and logistic services for e-commerce companies. In other words, the company’s warehouses take the clients’inventory and checks it, packages it appropriately, and sends it to Amazon or a retailer or directly to a customer who ordered online. “We do this for  \ne-commerce companies, mostly in the U.S. but also in Canada, Mexi","cbCaiquvLSgXXhLR","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiquvLSgXXhLR","pdf",3458728,11,"English","# Alumni\n## Taylor Smits: Life and Thoughts of a Technology Entrepreneur\n## Interview Narrative and Career Journey\n## E-commerce, Amazon, and Advice for Students","[{\"question\":\"Why did the interview include memorized poetry in a library study hall?\",\"answer\":\"Mrs. Hancock describes a frustrating study hall where a Senior Leader recited Wordsworth’s sonnet. After the recitation, Taylor explains that the intended message is that technology can get in the way of living and feeling.\"},{\"question\":\"What did Taylor Smits study and how did it influence him?\",\"answer\":\"After Canterbury, Taylor attended Syracuse University, majoring in Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises and minoring in English and Textual Studies. He credits the education with confidence that it is possible to succeed through hard things and to solve problems with dedication.\"},{\"question\":\"How did Taylor Smits build his business after being laid off?\",\"answer\":\"Taylor says that being laid off became his opportunity to start his own business. He moved into e-commerce and selling on Amazon, later expanding through a network of international warehouses and logistics services for e-commerce clients.\"}]","Alumni - Taylor Smits: The Life and Thoughts of a Technology Entrepreneur | PDF",1790522041,17]