Waldron Career Insights: Sciences
This episode features a few clips previous alumni conversations highlighting their memorable experiences relating to their majors in the sciences and how those experiences helped in their future careers.
First are a few selections from our interview with Danny Ginzburg ’13, where he talks about the impact of his Environmental Sciences Major and Environmental Policy & Culture minor. He also talks about impactful classes and how those classes impacted his worldview and direction toward a career path.
Next is a quote from our panel on Nontraditional Paths in Science and Medicine with Yujia Ding ’14. Yujia goes into detail about how her background colored her time at Northwestern, and how those experiences allow her to connect with students and be a better teacher.
Our last clip comes from a previous panel on Women in Science with Amy Yarrington ’11. Amy speaks on the value of an interdisciplinary education and how a wide background can help you communicate effectively through writing and conversation.
Check out the full conversations here:
Welcome to the Weinberg in the World Podcast, where we bring you stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world. This episode is brought to you by the Waldron Student-Alumni Connections Program, a resource in Weinberg College where we help current students explore career options through making connections with alumni.
In today's episode, we're excited to feature a few clips from previous alumni conversations, highlighting memorable experiences relating to alumnus majors in the sciences, and how those experiences helped in their future careers. First are two segments from our interview with Danny Ginzburg Ginsberg, who graduated from Weinberg College in 2013. Danny Ginzburg first talks about the impact of his environmental sciences major and environmental policy and culture minor, and then shares some impactful classes and how those classes influenced his worldview and direction toward a career path.
Danny Ginzburg :
The major that I took and the minor that I also got were attractive to me because I was kind of generally interested in natural sciences broadly, but biology and environmental sciences more specifically. And at least as I remember it at the time at Northwestern, most of the biology classes that were readily available were of pre-med-focused classes, and I wasn't particularly interested in that as a career path. And so I had to kind of mix and match and find a program that would allow me the flexibility to take classes from various departments that would still count towards making progress towards graduating. And Earth and Planetary Sciences at the time allowed me to take environmental science classes and physics classes and natural science classes.
So I was kind able to put together a whole compendium of classes that really broadened my perspective on how the natural sciences integrate with society, with politics, with agriculture, with nutrition, with public health. And as a whole, I totally feel that that experience, that Weinberg experience really opened my eyes to what I would then later go on to do professionally.
So I think this is where it gets a bit more abstract I think, given that I have chosen a career path that relies very heavily on quantitative analysis and doing science, so to speak. I do think that in terms of my worldview, how I understand the world, how I wish the world would work or look like, a lot of that came from my perhaps soft science classes, so some history classes, some sociology classes. I remember taking a class, for example, on US environmental law. I took a class on environmental history. The class that I mentioned, it was a sociology class called Environment in Society.
None of those classes... I didn't draw from those classes any hard skills that I use professionally, but those classes were really fundamental for how I came to understand the world and the problems that I thought were most pressing, which was really great to then pair with the kind of hard science classes that I was learning, and then the skills that I developed professionally. Those kind of ideals and ideas are still what motivate me today to try to improve upon, in this case, an industry that contributes so much to global warming in terms of its water footprint, its land footprint, resource footprint.
I only learned about those issues from my law classes, sociology classes, history classes. And I don't think... While there are many times when I think I might've benefited maybe had I been an engineering student or whatever, I surely would not have had those classes to help me form this worldview that I have now. So in retrospect, I'm actually incredibly grateful to have that opportunity to have such a wide-ranging liberal arts education that Weinberg gave me.
Cassie Petoskey:
Next is a quote from our alumni panel on non-traditional paths in science and medicine with Yujia Ding, who graduated from Weinberg College in 2014. Yujia goes into detail about how her background influenced her time at Northwestern and how those experiences allow her to connect with students and be a better teacher.
Yujia:
Definitely always be learning growth mindset. How do you learn something every day? I think Jackie mentioned she likes learning, and I do too, and it's been a running joke that my friends are like, "Don't go get another degree. You don't have the finances to do it." And I was like, "Okay, fine. We'll stop there for now in terms of letters after your name." But really, you're always learning. I tell my students, "Learn one thing today. What's something new you learned? It can be anything, right?"
But if I were to look at my undergrad self. So I actually transferred to Northwestern, so I was only at Northwestern for two years for my bachelor's, and then I stayed on for graduate school at Northwestern. So I mean, I ended up being in Evanston for a much longer time. But as a transfer student, you feel this like, I'm behind eight-ball, all my classmates are in labs and they're publishing. I'm like, "What do I do? What do I do?"
And so I dove in head first and I worked in a lab 12 hours a day, seven days a week, was able to get published, write a senior thesis, et cetera, et cetera. But it was exhausting. So I didn't do any networking. I didn't believe in networking because I was like, "Oh, it's undergrad, grad school, and then a job, right?" There's no if, ands, or buts. There's no sidetracks. You just head down and go.
And that just comes from growing up in that culture of you see your parents struggle when you immigrate with them from a different country, and you're like, "How do I keep moving up the ladder?" And one thing I wish I... I don't know if I wish I knew it then. I think looking back, and I tell my students and I do alumni interviews for perspective Northwestern students and the people I interact with, so anyone I interact with, whether it's coaching or whatever, I tell them just to be patient and really trust that you're this way for a reason. And that's something that I take away from the mental health struggles that I've had and also the physical illnesses and the chronic illnesses is that there's a reason why I mastered out of a PhD program and went into industry and then found my way into education and I am a teacher with a service dog and I look like "able body," whatever. All these things that you want to throw out.
If you look at it on paper, the cards are stacked against me to be in science, to be in STEM, whatever it may be. But I use that and that's fueled my experience. That's helped me relate to my student who never passed a science class for two years because he was visually impaired and teachers wrote him off from the beginning. And he wouldn't even use his accommodations. And then finally I sat down with him and I was like, "Look, I get that you can hide the fact that you have trouble seeing, but I can't hide a 75 pound dog. What do you want me to do? Tuck him in a corner and then be like, oh, I'm totally fine." I say that half jokingly, but it was an honest, genuine conversation that changed the way my student approached how he did his education. And now I don't know where he is now because I moved from the district, but things like that.
My other student, community college level, same story. Teachers wrote her off, "Oh, she can't make a comeback from this." And now she can, she works as a clinical laboratory scientist in California because she relearned everything. Her mom says it was the patience I had and the ability to relate. There's all these different things. And I wish I knew this happens for a reason, and as cheesy as it sounds, it does happen for a reason. And you may not realize it for 5, 10, 15 years, and it sucks being someone who has zero patience at all. It's the worst feeling in the world. I just want to get it done.
But now I'm starting to see those pieces come together. I can bring my experiences. I can say that I have a disability in STEM and I'm doing it. I can be that role model that I didn't have growing up. I mean, I didn't have many female teachers, let alone teachers who were Asian, let alone teachers who were immigrant. It just wasn't there. And so that's something that I knew or I caution people on just to trust, just keep going, keep going, but also trust that it'll work out.
Cassie Petoskey:
Our last clip comes from a previous panel on women in science with Amy Yarrington who graduated from Weinberg College in 2011. Amy speaks on the value of an interdisciplinary education and how this broad background can help you communicate effectively through writing and in conversation.
Amy:
Oh, man. I think that the interdisciplinary aspect of it was super translational for public health and my current career, because I think most of... If you're not in a traditional role, if you're not in academia or not in a more, I would say, prescribed path, if I can put it that way, everything becomes interdisciplinary.
So in my current role, I think writing is super important, being able to construct your thoughts in a cohesive way, in a way that makes sense, and not just make sense to you, but to people who don't have a science background, who maybe don't understand the concepts the way that you do, being able to present yourself in different ways. And I think being able to talk to people with different backgrounds really and know that the breadth of what you're experiencing and what you have learned at Northwestern is really indicative of what you'll see out in the world because science is so niche, it's so insular too. I think you'll find, at least in public health, specifically Chicago public health, you run into the same people over and over and over again. And I think that's probably true in many disciplines.
And so I think when you have this kind of breadth of background and this arts and sciences degree, I think you're exposed to just so much more and the opportunities there and what you can speak to and what you have just vaguely know about but don't know a lot about but could carry on a conversation about is huge.
Cassie Petoskey:
Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more of these conversations, links to the full videos and podcasts are below. For more information about Weinberg College and this podcast, visit weinberg.northwestern.edu and search for Waldron. As always, we would love to hear your feedback. Please email us with your thoughts on the program. Have a great day, and Go Cats.