How commerce student Katie Murray gained hands-on experience through Experience Ventures
Entrepreneurial thinking placement sharpens financial skills and inspires a new career path
Millin Clothing is a Halifax-based apparel company co-founded by Saint Mary’s University (SMU) student Thomas McVicar. When he heard about an opportunity to hire a fellow student for an entrepreneurial thinking placement through the university’s Arthur L. Irving Entrepreneurship Centre, he expressed his interest.
SMU is a partner in the Experience Ventures network — a nationwide collaboration of post-secondary institutions that pairs students with ventures for entrepreneurial thinking placements.
Experience Ventures is powered by the Hunter Hub of Entrepreneurial Thinking at the University of Calgary and funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Innovative Work-Integrated Learning Initiative (I-WIL). The program’s goal is to enable college and university students to practice entrepreneurial thinking alongside real-world innovators.
For Katie Murray, the promise of real-world learning and the potential to strengthen her resume had appeal.
“What really drew me into the Experience Ventures program was the fact that it was a hands-on opportunity. I really wanted to gain experience.”
A fourth-year Bachelor of Commerce student at SMU, Murray is pursuing a double major in finance and marketing — two fields within the commerce program that she says complement each other very well.
McVicar hired Murray for an 80-hour placement at Millin. The role was fully remote, allowing her to complete the work from home and earn an honorarium during a holiday break.
The power of learning by doing
During the first half of her placement, Murray analyzed the company’s financials — categorizing past expenses and revenues, creating monthly reports, and identifying trends.
“I’m an accounting student, but my accounting wasn’t the best,” McVicar admits. “Katie really helped to fill that void in the business.”
With her remaining time, Murray developed a detailed pricing model to facilitate client orders. Because Millin Clothing sells custom apparel like branded uniforms, every order that comes in is unique and unpredictable. McVicar says that the tool has had a huge impact on the business.
“She built an amazing Excel document where you select the modifications and it gives you the price, how much it’s going to cost us, and then some unique KPIs. It spits out prices for 25, 50, 75, 100 units in a nice table format.”
Although her work was remote, Murray was a fully integrated member of the team, and she was in regular contact with McVicar via email, text, and occasional video calls. He encouraged her to take ownership of tasks and coached her through any challenges that arose.
“It was pretty independent,” McVicar says. “There was a lot of ongoing problem-solving. I really let her be entrepreneurial within the organization.”
Katie valued the support and mentorship — and the trust she was given.
“My favourite part was how flexible it was and how I was able to take the initiative to do tasks that I actually wanted to do.”
Flexibility and future plans
McVicar considers the Experience Ventures placement a success and has already recommended the program to others.
“I think entrepreneurial thinking is just being able to solve problems. No matter what situation you’re in, using the resources you have to put yourself in a better position. Every day, something unexpected happens. Being able to be comfortable with that is a very strong character trait.”
For Murray, the experience might have altered the course of her career. Before, she had been aiming for a job in banking. Now, inspired by McVicar’s entrepreneurial arc, she’s considering her options.
“I’m 90% sure I’m going to start my own business. Entrepreneurial thinking is about creating your own opportunities.”
As a step in that direction, Katie invested the honorarium she received for her placement at Millin Clothing to purchase a camera, so she can experiment with content creation and social media marketing for future clients.
“And if I don’t end up starting my own business,” she adds, “I hope to use the experience I gained from the Experience Ventures program as something to talk about with potential recruiters and employers.”