Aishwarya Nagar

Aishwarya Nagar, MPH

WFU Biology 2016
WFU Presidential Fellow 2017

What advice would you give students who have an interest in STEM/Health?

I encourage students to explore all possible career options in the STEM/Health world. Clinical research and medicine aren’t our only options, even though it felt like that when I was at WFU. Public health, for instance, is an incredibly diverse and important field that engages technical STEM/Health competencies and improves the wellbeing of communities at large. It’s a case of “you don’t know what you don’t know” but students can connect with working professionals, professors, and researchers or work in different labs to figure out where their interests lie.  

What WFU career resources did you utilize that were most helpful to you?

The Office of Personal and Career Development at Wake provided guidance on my resume, helped me reframe my experiences based on my field, and offered valuable one-on-one sessions for career planning. They also helped connect me with alumni who had similar interests to mine. The mentorship opportunities that I accessed as a Wake Forest Fellow were instrumental in helping me develop more marketable skills and interests. In the STEM/Health world, graduate programs, publishing in peer-reviewed journals, presenting at conferences, research, practicum/internships, and volunteering are highly valued experiences!  

What courses, activities or experiences gave you an edge in the job search process?

As a student and as a Wake Forest Fellow, mentorship from administrators and professors helped guide my job search and refine my professional interests. Although my STEM courses equipped me with technical knowledge, many of my non-STEM courses’ assignments paralleled the work you would do in “the real world” and equipped me with a systems-level understanding of health. Additionally, I attribute most of my personal and professional development to leadership and community service experiences. Collectively, these allowed me to highlight a diverse array of skills, pull on fun narratives during interviews, and be more strategic during my job search process.

What specific advice would you give regarding effective networking?

Effective networking takes a lot out of you! You have to be vulnerable, uncomfortably extroverted, and be explicit about your needs, all of which is not intuitive to everyone. I recommend seeking support from people you trust and preparing yourself to be cautiously optimistic. Being “ghosted” by potential contacts feels like a personal attack but it is never a commentary on your value as a person. More often than not, people like to help others succeed. I recommend preparing a short, catchy pitch about who you are and what you’re passionate about. Conferences, webinars, health-focused associations, informational interviews, reaching out to authors of cutting edge reports and papers are all wonderful ways to connect with people.

What specific advice would you give to students regarding effective interviewing?

Do your research and be prepared to connect your experiences with your interviewer’s projects, mission statement, or institutional values. Identify a core list of your strengths, valuable experiences, and skills to pull on during your interview. Ask questions to learn more about your interviewer. When you’re asked a question, take some time to process your answer but also make it clear when you’re passionate about something they’ve mentioned. On a personal level, I tend to activate my god complex before interviews and hype myself up so that I’m walking into the room (or Zoom call?) with adequate confidence. You can never go wrong with a couple of power poses, Lizzo songs, and good old talking to yourself in the mirror before an interview!

Are there any books, magazines, websites, etc. that you would recommend to students who are interested in STEM/Health?

For students who are interested in public health, the American Public Health Association has tons of resources on their website. If global health sounds interesting to you, Johns Hopkins’ Global Health NOW newsletter is absolutely fantastic. Many public health institutions are adapting to pandemic-related restrictions and hosting free, virtual webinars and workshops, many of which can be found on Twitter. Students might enjoy TV shows, documentaries, and movies that highlight public health issues e.g. Call the Midwife, And the Band Played On, Pad Man, Contagion, Miss Representation, and more.