What You Can Achieve During Your Masters: Siddhesh’s Story

There are lots of reasons to do a Masters. You might want to learn more about a particular subject. You might want a step up in your career. You may already know you want to do a PhD so a Masters is the next step. Whatever the reason, a Masters can be a lot more than studying and research.

Meet Siddhesh Zadey! Growing up in Nagpur, India, Siddhesh studied an integrated Masters in Natural Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune.

He had the opportunity to head to Harvard Medical School for his thesis year. After graduating, he worked with a community health hospital in India in their addiction clinic. This spurred him on to do a second Masters in Global Health at the Duke Global Health Institute in Durham, US. He also co-founded the non-profit think tank ASAR (Association for Socially Applicable Research).

His contributions to public health research, advocacy and activism were highly commended in our Postgrad Awards Masters Student of the Year category. We asked him 10 questions about his postgraduate journey so far.

#1 Why did you decide to do a second Masters?

In India we have a lot of problems but there isn’t much research or funding to work on the issues in a data-driven manner. That was a major motivational push for me to try and explore public and global health. I knew I’d have the skills to solve some of the more immediate and urgent public health problems.

#2 During your studies, you co-founded a non-profit think tank… how did that come about?

A couple of my friends and I came up with the acronym ASAR which means ‘impact’ in Hindi. We then had to try and think of the name underneath it and came up with the Association for Socially Applicable Research. We wanted to work on some of the problems that we’d seen at the community level. We got a lot of support and encouragement from some amazing mentors, funders, and sponsors. People responded to the fact that we were a group of young people trying to use our skills to solve socially significant problems.

#3 What’s the main focus of the think tank?

We have two focuses: research and advocacy. We have a lot of public health, social and policy problems in India and not enough researchers. We wanted to fill in the gap with data-driven research which could be useful for policy and decision-making. We also disliked the idea that research is limited to academic journals. We wanted to communicate our evidence and encourage young people to be advocates for research-based thinking and problem solving, where we can translate the knowledge into action.

#4 What does the future hold for the think tank?

Our focus for the next three to five years is on connecting the insights we have with smaller communities. We’ve done well with creating advocacy forums and research platforms, but we’re missing some links on how the research can be actioned.

#5 A lot of people you work with in the non-profit are young students, how do you find being a mentor?

It’s one of the best parts of my entire day. It’s very gratifying when someone comes up to you and they’re happy to be working with you.

#6 What are you most proud of in your career so far?

I’m very proud of the work I did with my Masters thesis. I'm able to see it translated into an amazing project we're running with the non-profit on rural surgical care in India. Our research could have real impact in the next couple of years.

#7 What was your typical day as a Masters student like?

My typical day was mainly classes in the morning, reading after lunch, and then going to the gym, badminton court, or biking in the evening. But towards the end of my programme it was more interesting. I started working with a research group where I got to assist in pig surgeries. My day would be computer-based in the morning and then in the afternoon, I was doing surgery!

#8 What did you enjoy most about your Masters experience?

The most important thing for me about my Masters experience was meeting new people. The Covid-19 pandemic hit after we completed our first semester which wasn’t great but it helped in a weird way. We kept in touch and supported each other and now I’ll have lifelong friendships that I may not have had otherwise. Shout out to some of my pals – Kuleni, Kaitlin, Hiwot, Sreeja, Zay Yar, Annika, Sarah, and others!

#9 What are you looking to do next?

I’m thinking of going back to neuroscience because I’m still in love with it. Some of the work I already do is more psychology and neuroscience related so it would complement it. Neuroscience creates a strong quantitative analytical skills base. I'll be able to translate that to global public health too.

#10 What advice would you give to someone thinking of doing a Masters?

Masters programmes are great if you want to start something new or if you have competing interests. You can try them without committing three or four years to it. They’re also a good way of launching your career in a certain area.

You can read more about Siddhesh and his experience of being an Indian student in the US in our study abroad interview.