Izzy
Saridakis is a senior majoring in Applied Math/Statistics and minoring
Anthropology. Izzy will return to campus this Fall to complete the 4+1 program
in Biostatistics at the Rollins School of Public Health.
We had a chance to sit down
with Izzy and talk about her Public Health journey and how she found the right
program for her.
What are your plans
post-graduation?
After graduation, I am interning at Humana, a health
insurance company out of Louisville, Kentucky. I will be on their pharmacy
analytics and data science team within their analytics department. The focus of
my work will be determining how best to improve the health of Humana members.
After this summer, I will be returning to Rollins School of
Public Health at Emory complete my Master of Science of Public Health (MSPH) in
Biostatistics. Since I did the 4+1 program, I only have one additional year of
school to obtain the MSPH. After this, I am not quite sure where I will end up,
but the Health Insurance industry is one of my top interests.
Why did you choose to do the 4+1 program with the Rollins
School of Public Health?
I chose to do the 4+1 program in biostatistics because I
knew I had a passion for social justice and healthcare, but medicine was not
the right track for me. My dad and almost his entire family works in medicine
and would have loved If I went down that road as well. However, I never found
biology, chemistry, or anatomy all that interesting. In reality, the only
science class in high school I really liked was physics and that was just because
I liked the math behind it. I thought healthcare was interesting and liked the
field but practicing medicine was of no interest to me. I knew math was a
subject I wanted to study so I went to Emory planning on majoring in math since
I knew at the end of the day it was a useful degree and I could go into just
about any field with it. When I was trying to decide what specific math major,
I wanted to do, I came across the 4+1 program in biostatistics. As I
investigated, I found that public health and specifically biostatistics was a
path where I could continue doing math, but have it focused in the field of
healthcare. So basically, since I was a freshman my plan was to get an MSPH in
biostatistics and I chose my major (applied mathematics and statistics) and
minor (anthropology) to be what I thought would help me best obtain this goal.
I chose this track specifically because even after I decided
I wanted to do it, I questioned if it was the best option. I would go on
websites and look for jobs of interest to me and they all required a master’s
degree of some sort. Either in statistics, biostatistics, or another closely
related field. It seemed like I was going to want the additional degree
eventually anyway so might as well go for it with this program so that I only
needed one additional year of school instead of two. I couldn’t be more
thankful for it.
What are some things you wish you knew 5 years ago?
5 years ago, I was a junior in high school. I wish I knew
that I could take almost anything I was interested in, choose it for my
undergraduate field of study, and apply it to almost any field I am interested
in. There is no need to try and force yourself to like a subject because you
think it will make you the most money or get you the specific job you want. When
you are choosing your job, it is not like all math majors have to get a job
that is specifically just math. A lot of people have asked me if I am planning
on being a math teacher with my degree because they don’t realize how many
possible careers I could have with it. I can go into the healthcare world – in
insurance, pharmaceuticals, or research—but I could also decide that is not for
me and be fully equipped to work in almost any analytics department, no matter
the field. Our areas of study provide us with tools to use in our future careers,
but they don’t determine what our job has to be.
What is the best advice you could give to a student
interested in Public Health?
I would advise someone to study what they find most
interesting and then figure out how to factor it into their choice of career
field. I minored in anthropology and volunteered in activities which gave me a
look into the public health world. I’m getting a degree in public health, but I
didn’t have to major in it to get there. I am working in healthcare without
having taken any science classes in college besides an intro to psych course
and anthropology course.
What challenges did you face and how did you overcome
them?
My biggest challenge has been that most people don’t know
what I’m trying to do or how to advise me in it. Grad schools don’t have many
specific requirements to get accepted like medical school does. They want to
see that you are interested in the field you want the higher degree in but that
doesn’t mean your entire undergraduate career had to be focused on that. You
can explore other classes and fields before settling and use these experiences
to build your path to whatever field you eventually end up in.