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The application process took nearly three months from the time she saw the announcement and when she started work. Kathy called the contact person and ended up talking to the person she eventually replaced. She told Kathy about the job and told her to send her material to human resources. Two phone interviews and a face-to-face interview later, the position was hers.

Career Center (CC): What is your current job?

Kathy Vestal (KV): I suppose you could say I'm in the field of academic research. I am a staff research associate at the UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion, which is a partnership of the UCLA Department of Pediatrics, the UCLA Department of Public Health, RAND (a private nonprofit research institute that conducts research to improve public policy), and local communities. The main function of the Center is to conduct studies and develop programs to improve the health and well being of adolescents, with a special emphasis on projects that involve parents of adolescents.

CC: What are your main job responsibilities?

KV: My job is pretty eclectic, and I find myself occupied with a wide variety of tasks in relation to performing and publishing academic research. For instance, I conduct literature searches to provide background material for journal articles and establish the nature of published research on any particular topic. I also edit page proofs of articles that have been accepted by academic journals, draft questions for and edit surveys and interview protocols, read and draft text for grant proposals, analyze and synthesize article content for presentations and trek over to the various campus libraries to retrieve articles.

CC: In what ways did your undergraduate degree prepare you for your current job?

KV: I think my psychology degree gave me an excellent background for understanding and assimilating research, and as much as I hate to say it, Psych 101 (Research and Data Analysis, a.k.a. "statistics") has been immensely helpful in comprehending what all those numbers really mean. My degree has also provided me with a much keener understanding of human behavior, motivation, and relationships.

CC: What other experiences/training were important in getting you to where you are in your career?

KV: I credit Cal's Health and Medical Apprenticeship Program and its Health Service Internship (HSI) for pointing me in the direction of public health. I took IDS 130 (Social, Political and Ethical Issues in Medicine and Health) in the spring of my junior year, which sparked my interest in a career somehow related to health. I learned about and qualified for HSI through that class. HSI is a semester-long internship that pairs undergraduates with community organizations in the Bay Area with an emphasis on public health. I interned eight hours per week with a non-profit agency that works in the area of reproductive rights, an experience which solidified my interest in public health and gave me the opportunity to gain some practical experience working in the non-profit field.

The other experience that has helped guide my career to this point developed through a class I took during the fall semester of my senior year, Social Welfare 198. The object of this class was to learn how to write grant proposals by writing an actual grant proposal for a non-profit organization in the Bay Area. I was paired with Asian Pacific Psychological Services, an agency that provides culturally competent mental health services to the Asian Pacific population in the East Bay. I wrote a grant proposal for an early childhood mental health program over the course of the semester and then was offered a job to work part-time as a project assistant for the next semester. This experience gave me the opportunity to explore another facet of the non-profit world and develop skills in grantwriting, which are highly valued by non-profits.

CC: What do you like about your work?

KV: I enjoy the variety of work that I perform, the intelligent, fun people I work with, and the sense that I'm contributing to something that will eventually have a positive impact. I also enjoy that I often feel challenged by my job, that my skills and confidence in my abilities are constantly growing, and that I have the opportunity to contribute my own ideas and suggestions in numerous ways.

CC: Any drawbacks?

KV: The amount of work I have at any one time is highly variable, so that while one day I'll be extremely busy and working on three or four tasks at once, other days I find myself searching for work. However, I was warned about this when I was hired, and I realize that it goes along with the nature of the job.

CC: Any tips for current students?

KV: Based on my experiences, I would suggest finding an internship in an area that interests you while you're still in school, so you have the opportunity to demonstrate to future employers and/or graduate schools that you have a solid interest and background in the field. This also provides you with the flexibility to change your mind and develop new interests before you head out into the job market. Furthermore, an internship can help you develop relationships with other people working in your area of interest, within and outside of your own organization, who may come in handy when you're ready to find a job.

I would also suggest grantwriting as a marketable skill that is very attractive to non-profits, many of which are continually looking for new funding opportunities. This could also allow you to explore different types of non-profits and areas of specialization, since you don't necessarily have to be an expert in the field to draft a convincing grant proposal.

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