From Schoolteacher To Data Analyst: Internship Gives UNB Student A ‘Once-In-A-Lifetime’ Opportunity
Workplace cliches about “Mondays” are inescapable. But as tiring as they can be, they are pervasive for a reason. Even for the happiest employees, at a great job, the prospect of an entire week stretching out before them can be daunting and a little depressing.
That’s not the case for Monica.
The UNB student has been working for months for Appcast as part of an internship program offered through the school’s Faculty of Management.
Monica says she can’t wait for Monday morning and the start of her work week.
“Have you ever heard anyone who is saying ‘oh my God, today’s Monday. I’m so excited to go to work’? This is me,” Monica says.
“This internship has been like a one-in-a-million opportunity I got and I’m so happy. I keep on ranting about it. I got such a great opportunity and I just can’t wait to tell people what I’m doing.”
It’s been a long and impressive journey for Monica to get to the point where she’s giddily awaiting a new day at work.
For years, she taught elementary and secondary school in New Delhi, India. Her husband, Siddharth, came to New Brunswick in 2019 to pursue a Master’s degree and encouraged Monica to do the same.
So, Monica enrolled in UNB’s MBA program, something she said was a big step.
“At first I was in doubt, because it’s not easy to leave your already safe career and try something else. But Siddharth actually gave me all the confidence to come,” Monica says.
Early on in her degree, she took a data analytics course and immediately fell in love with the science.
“I really loved it. There are so many things we can do with data and, being a math teacher, there was so many things I did with data with my students,” she says.
So much of data analytics, she explains, is presenting complex data in a way that is easily understandable and digestible for people without a math or data background. Monica realized she had cultivated that skill as a teacher and would be able to transfer that experience to a new career in data science.
But it wasn’t an easy transition.
“Those traditional skills are good but they’re not enough. I didn’t have any background in programming, so I started taking more courses. I took SQL and Python and others,” Monica says.
With constant encouragement from her husband, Monica began learning the programming skills she’d need to pursue a data science career.
Then, she got the “one-in-a-million” opportunity that changed everything.
As part of a partnership with PETL and Planet Hatch, UNB’s Faculty Of Management offers international students practical job experience through the Graduate Student Internship program.
Monica, still not entirely confident in her skills, applied for the program without much hope of being selected.
“I didn’t have any confidence,” she recalls.
But local company Appcast saw something in her and gave her one of their internship positions. Monica was stunned and delighted to be chosen and says the internship has been the best thing that could have happened for her career.
“I don’t have any corporate experience, I didn’t have all the technical skills, and I was skeptical how I was going to adapt,” she says. “But when I came here I was awestruck with my welcome. Everyone, even their CEO, the big boss, gives value to me as an intern.”
Appcast gave Monica a project that aligned with her career goals and before long she had developed a scraping program that automated a task that used to take the sales team hours.
Monica says her internship supervisor, Michael Huggard, was a big part of her success, giving her the opportunity to work on a project.
“This is exactly what we call experiential learning, exercising one’s knowledge practically,” she says.
Even today, she still marvels at the growth she’s experienced, from someone who knew very little about programming to making valuable contributions to the company using her programming skills.
It has been an opportunity she says she never would have had without the internship program.
“I was looking for a career transition from teaching to data analytics. And if I didn’t have this internship, it will be really difficult for me to get directly hired by any company because I don’t have any experience,” she says.
Chelsey Pugh is a recruiter at Appcast. She is also in charge of the company’s internship programs.
She says the internship program has been incredibly beneficial for Appcast, both because the company’s interns allowed it to focus on new projects and because it provides a pipeline to the “exceptional” talent coming from UNB.
“As an increasingly global company with a large employer footprint and in the Fredericton area, the program has provided us with a direct pipeline of bright, highly skilled, and diverse talent,” Pugh says.
“Having a direct connection to some of UNB’s best and brightest allows us to stay aligned and in touch with both the student population and the international community.”
In fact, the program has been so beneficial that Appcast has now hired Monica for a permanent position.