Aaron Abedin: InTERPShip Academy Spotlight

Maryland track and field’s Aaron Abedin is furthering his experience in the tech industry through Maryland Made’s InTERPship Academy. 

The academy was established to support student-athletes at the University of Maryland in pursuing opportunities in their chosen professional field of interest. Operating from June 2 to July 25, the 37 student-athletes in the summer session have the chance to work with established professionals in their industry to learn more about their future career interests. 

Abedin, a rising junior sprinter studying information science, is working as a data analytics intern at LinkedInOrLeftOut LLC. He’s working under former Maryland track and field athlete Max Myers, who is his supervisor for this internship. 

Abedin and Myers both described their experiences working together this summer in a Q&A with umterps.com.

What is your internship position and the name of your organization for this summer?

“Data Analytics Intern at LinkedInOrLeftOut LLC.”

Why did you apply to be a part of the Maryland Made InTERPship Academy?

“I applied for this position to gain more hands-on experience through interning and to get exposure to the tech industry.”

What are your current roles and responsibilities at your internship site?

“During my time at LinkedInOrLeftOut, I was responsible for tracking clients who applied to our programs and breaking down key performance metrics. This included analyzing how they discovered our platform, all the way to identifying which clients ultimately invested in our services. This was broken down into creating a sales funnel, scoring framework, marketing dashboard, and optimization ideas.”

How has this internship aligned with your expectations of what it would be like?

“This internship aligned closely with what I was looking for as it gave me the chance to work independently, think critically, and approach problems from an analytical perspective.”

How will this internship help support your future career aspirations?

“This experience has definitely prepared me for the future, as it gave me a clearer picture of what it’s like to work in tech and the kind of work I hope to do long-term.”

What is one piece of advice you would give to someone looking to pursue a career in this industry?

“One piece of advice I’d give to others is to take time figuring out exactly what you want to do. The tech industry is incredibly diverse, with many paths to choose from. Make sure you’re doing something you enjoy, not just chasing a paycheck.”

Can you share an example of an accomplishment you had during your internship or something you are proud of yourself for?

“One thing I’m proud of is building my first funnel audit using just a small set of data. I broke down the analytics from source to sale, calculated conversion and drop-off rates, identified the top sources, and used those insights to suggest potential solutions.”

Provide any additional information you’d like to share about your internship, organization, and your opportunity this summer through Maryland Made.

“I’m incredibly grateful to be a part of the Maryland Made program and feel blessed to have had the opportunity to intern with LinkedInOrLeftOut.”

Max Myers

What are your current roles and responsibilities?

“I wear two main hats: CEO and Head of Marketing, so my day-to-day cuts across strategy, people, and growth.”

• Customer Service and Product Quality: I design and audit training for our team of service providers, enforce quality standards for resumes and curriculum, and oversee customer-success channels and escalations.
• Marketing and Brand Growth: I craft the brand narrative, plan and launch marketing campaigns, create thought-leadership content, and analyze ROI to keep our sales and marketing funnels healthy.
• Operations and Compliance: I architect our onboarding workflows, select and manage our ops stack (Jira, G Suite, Discord), and ensure contracts, data privacy, and IP protection stay airtight.
• Strategic and Financial Stewardship: “I set our company-wide OKRs, run quarterly deep-dive reviews, own the budget, forecasting, expense control, and keep investors in the loop.
• Business Development: I scout new markets, build university and corporate partnerships, and lead fundraising conversations.

“Pretty much, I’m responsible for setting the vision, keeping the numbers on track, and making sure our brand, team, and customers all thrive together.”

How was your experience as a student-athlete at UMD?

“Honestly, it was tough, but I’m glad it was. I was the only computer-science major in my graduating class, so I always felt caught between two worlds. With my CS friends, I’d be deep in algorithms, but never had enough time to work through homework or exams without having to sprint off to practice or a meet.

With my track teammates, I was that guy always with a laptop, grinding through homework, job interviews, or exams. There were days I’d wake up at 5 a.m., hit the track at 6 a.m., and take an eight-hour CS exam from 9-5. These days, I was typically alone because missing practice wasn’t an option, and failing a class meant losing eligibility.

That constant push-and-pull was isolating at times, but it forged the exact grit entrepreneurship demands. Building a business can feel just as lonely, and the resolve I honed at Maryland, balancing workouts, coursework, and career prep, now powers me through startup chaos. It took a mountain of sacrifice, but I’m grateful for every rep and late night; those experiences made the victories that followed possible.

And I never did it alone. Maryland Made staff, coaches, tutors, academic and athletic advisors, and professors all had my back. Their support, plus my own ‘failure-is-not-an-option’ mindset, helped me grind through every obligation and setback and come out stronger on the other side.”

How did your experience at UMD as a student-athlete prepare you for your current role?

“My life on the track and in CS class gave me the exact skills I lean on today:”

• Extreme Time Management: I was the only student-athlete in UMD’s CS Class of ’23. Balancing 20+ hour training weeks with compiler projects forced me to plan every hour and execute under pressure, which is essential for juggling CEO duties, my full-time engineering work at Microsoft, and our startup’s daily fires.
• Delayed-Gratification Mindset: Track means eleven months of training for a few seconds on the clock. That discipline maps perfectly to startup life, where you invest for months before seeing traction.
• Leadership and Empathy: Being the Captain also taught me to motivate teammates, resolve conflict, and ‘lead from the front,’ skills I now use to mentor interns and keep our core team aligned.
• Problem-Solving Discipline: CS coursework drilled me to be slow to assume and fast to debug, a habit that saves hours when diagnosing product or revenue issues.

“UMD athletics taught me persistence; UMD CS sharpened my problem-solving skills. Together, they built the resilience and strategic thinking I rely on as an alumnus, CEO of LinkedIn or Left Out, and software engineer at Microsoft.”

How has it been supervising a student-athlete who went to the same alma mater as you?

“It’s been a win-win. Back at Maryland, I had a mentor through the Maryland Made Mentorship program who was also a Terp student-athlete alum. He told me that he always looks out for athletes who apply because he knows how much they can handle.

I didn’t fully get it until I started building LinkedInorLeftOut and struggled to recruit the right talent. When Rhys and Aaron joined as interns this summer, it clicked: student-athletes bring grit, time-management, and team instincts that translate straight from the track to the workplace, yet they’re often overlooked. Now I always keep an eye out for them.”

How have you seen the student-athlete grow during their internship?

“Their growth has been obvious and impressive. From day one, they showed that student-athlete tenacity. I would have to describe it as an almost unstoppable urge to master whatever tough skills we threw at them. Our startup is still young and scrappy, so processes aren’t always crystal clear, but they have adapted fast. They asked sharp questions, surfaced fresh marketing angles I’d been stuck on for months, and kept pushing for feedback until they nailed it. On top of soliciting feedback, they took feedback constructively and not personally, and continued to iterate upon the tasks they were given. That relentless curiosity mirrors what they put in on the track: go above and beyond, outwork the competition, and find ways to stand out.

What surprised me most, though, is just how coachable they are. Growing up in sports, I took “coachability” for granted, but seeing it in action here, especially how quickly they absorb feedback and translate it into better work, really drove home how important and powerful that trait is. Pair that openness to coaching with their hunger to learn, and you get interns who level up faster than anyone else on the team.”

What advice would you give to current student-athletes aspiring to transition into professional roles?

“Play your sport at work (without burning out). Bring the same over-achiever drive, coachability, and feedback-loop mentality that made you successful on the field, but remember your career is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Pace yourself, build in recovery time, and protect your mental health so you can sustain high performance for decades, not just one season. Employers value consistent, balanced excellence more than a short burst followed by burnout.

Start sharpening your professional game early. Since a student-athlete's schedule is packed, it's easy to shove career prep to the back burner, but you should do your best to avoid that. Carve out time on a monthly basis for updating your resume, networking, or skill-building courses. That polish turns the raw grit you’ve gained in sports into refined, job-ready skills so that when recruiting season hits, you’re already in race-day shape.”