Thank you to all the alumni who answered the call to share their career paths and job advice at our “backpack 2 Briefcase” event with HMB and CSB undergraduates!
What are the career options for CSB and HMB students?
After introductory remarks from Professor Eba Kurz, students travelled between tables at the Wiliam Doo auditorium to ask questions of different alumni.
“I got to meet a lot of different people who are intersectional in terms of their career in biology and something else,” noted one student “So it’s just been fun to explore all the different career pathways I could potentially take.”
Our guests were at different career stages from entry level through research and service professionals to senior managers. Positions in academia, pharmaceuticals, finance, and public service were all represented. They had roles as research scientists, consultants, lawyers, sales specialists or clinic directors. This diversity gave each alumni unique perspectives on the paths open to our students.
One of the students learned that it was important to “Explore your options because if I was in first or second year and this event came up into my e-mail I wouldn’t have looked out for it. But with my experiences into my third year, I think the most important thing I can take from undergrad is go for the opportunity and not just wait for it to fall in your lap.”
Khevna Dave studied Global Health and worked in vulnerable communities in South America, West Africa, South Asia and Middle East. She is now back in Toronto as Director of Mission Hub, training people on how to do cross-cultural work well.
“A lot of volunteering opportunities as a student here actually played a role in developing some of my skills in my current work,” Khenva asserts. “I volunteered with extra-curricular clubs that built my networks and connections with people. And you can work for UofT in different roles as a student. I did a lot of communications at Student Life that naturally lent itself as a helpful tool for my nonprofit work.”
Many pathways to an exciting career
One student learned that “Our pathway is not just set into stone. The first speaker that I talked to actually was telling us about how her undergrad differed a lot from her postgrad with her masters and where she’s working now. And that really reignited a lot of my previous passions that I haven’t considered.”
Trieu Nguyen was one alumni who took an alternative path. “I started my journey in Human Biology, taking all the different science courses for the first three years. And then I kind of did a little pivot in my undergraduate program. I took a little bit of statistics and political science and ended up falling in love with computers. So you can start in one area, but you can always try something else and venture into different areas. I now run a team of developers and business analysts as clinical research coordinator at Bank of New York.”
Reflecting on an informative experience
This event proceeded smoothly thanks to the work of faculty and staff from Faculty of Arts & Science: Genna Zunde, Mila Thirasack, Sarah Cook, Prof Eba Kurz and Prof Keiko Yoshioka.
At the end of backpack to Briefcase, students were positive about the experience “I came here looking into what I want to do for grad school or med school. Seeing how people have progressed through their career is kind of what I’m looking for. I found out about a bunch of different paths through and after life science. So I definitely got what I came for.”
“I learned a lot about how to talk to your professors and make sure that you can get a good reference and then also just how to make your application to different grad schools stand out more,” said one student guest. “But I think this is my first event where I got to speak with a lot of different alumni. I’m really glad that I came to this event today.”
The alumni were impressed by what they saw as well. Max Shcherbina studied Cell & Molecular Biology and is now a Research Scientist at University of Toronto “What struck me most about the students who came is how eager and how wonderful their achievements are so far and how they want to keep that going. And I was happy to facilitate and help as much as I could in that regard.”
Thank you to Dr Meggie Cao (Cell & Systems Biology), Max Shcherbina (Cell & Systems Biology), Dr Simon Lui (Nikon), Marissa Lee (Massage Addict), Limin Wang (OLG), Sabrina Hyde (Ontario Ministry of Children, Community, & Social Services), Ahash Jeevakanthan (Public Health Canada), Trieu Nguyen (Bank of New York), Katelyn Macfaden (Borden Ladner Gervais Llp), Rabia Ahmad (Supply Ontario), Khevna Dave (Mission Hub) as well as Muna Abdulla (Trillium Health Partners), Tonny Huang (GSK), Dr Arnold Ruste (PrEP Clinic) and Thenuka Thanabalasingam (Sanofi)!