What are some of the career options you were looking at upon or even before graduation?
I was quite enthusiastic about being a product manager at a technology start-up, largely influenced by my time in Silicon Valley. I was also attracted to consulting roles, given the variety of intellectual challenges in this field.

In general, what does data analytics entail and what is expected of a data analyst?
There’s a lot of buzz about data analytics, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Ultimately, it’s about extracting useful and actionable insights from data. This would entail understanding data in the context of the business, and the business challenges that data can help solve. It is important to understand both the data and business side of things, not just one or the either, and it helps a lot if you have a strong sense of curiosity for both. Additionally, you need to be able to explain the insights you derived from data.

What do you miss about university life?
Research! It’s great fun to be at the forefront of finding out new things.

How do you think a physics education has prepared you in your present job?
My physics education displayed its worth in a variety of ways—from the attitude that anything can be solved (under some approximation if needed), to honing critical and logical thinking. These are traits that are particularly important in problem-solving jobs like consulting and data analytics.

What do you think are some important skills one should have in order to succeed in today’s workplace?
Beyond what was mentioned earlier, soft skills such as communication and persuasion are essential. When working as a team towards a common goal, these are the skills that will help you lead the team to focus on doing impactful work. Innately, it’s also important to develop a strong sense of perseverance, because inevitably, there are challenges, and we need to rise up to each challenge.