Today we’d like to introduce you to Michelle Ihetu.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My name is Michelle Ihetu, I am a senior biomedical engineering student at the University of South Carolina. I am one of the first students to earn a Bachelor of Arts in biomedical engineering, a first of its kind degree that combines the biological sciences with the business acumen of the pharmaceutical industry.
Being one of the first students to graduate with this one-of-a-kind degree felt like being on an island by myself. There was always one question looming over my mind,
“What on Earth am I going to do after college?”
I was about to enter into the roaring sea of the current job market.
Everybody has heard the headlines that it is increasingly harder to get a job especially for new grads. There are countless videos online of new graduates across many disciplines and degree levels spending days on end hopelessly applying for jobs.
I felt the clock tick above me as this was the fate waiting for me after I graduated college. I began to feel despair as I felt the weight of time come over me, but I had to ask myself…
What do I want my own story to be?
One of hope.
From that moment on, I decided to make my fear into an opportunity thus NextMove was born. An AI powered navigational tool that teaches people how to network, write resumes, apply for jobs and interview prep.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No, not at all. You can ask anybody starting a business, it is never a smooth road forward but that is also what makes the journey fun. I’m still in the process of building and designing my app NextMove but to set my venture apart from all the competition, I went out on my own for customer discovery. Customer discovery is where you interview potential customers of your product to understand their needs and wants so you can validate a need and target market. It is a crucial phase a lot of entrepreneurs tend to overlook when starting a business venture.
I have spent this entire summer reaching out to my fellow students on LinkedIn to understand their frustrations with the job market so I can validate a solution.
The most interesting part is reaching out to HR professionals to see their opinion. A lot of my outreach had never reached the desk of professionals but the few who responded made the journey worthwhile.
Fitting in Zoom calls between work and school is honestly a very chaotic process and that is assuming they live in EST time.
But when I do sit in front of people, look them in the eye and hear their story and perspective; it makes the hassle worth it and makes me feel like I’m actually making a positive contribution to my community.
No matter the time or my schedule, I always end every meeting with a smile.
And I think that is what makes it worth it.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I work as an undergraduate research assistant at the Acute Stress Center in the USC School of Engineering and Computing, where I conduct NLP research. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a form of AI that focuses on text generation similar to the chatbot you see on ChatGPT. I also do freelance work at the AI institute helping out with different chatbot projects anyway I can.
I think the main thing that sets me apart from others is that I am a self-taught data scientist. I have been taking online courses through Datacamp and Kaggle which has helped me build the relevant computer science skills to do my job.
That is why I am especially grateful to do research at USC because it is a place to build my skills and give me the real-world experience of working in tech.
I think the quality I am most proud of is having the courage to try something new. Walking in a room of AI experts as a beginner is not easy but it is also important to have the humility to say I don’t know and teach yourself along the way. It is that humility that makes me adaptable and thrive under any circumstances.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Look I know I’m only 21 but I have wasted years trying to predict the future. If you were to ask me a year ago what industry I would be working in, I couldn’t tell you.
So my advice for anyone in tech especially in the AI industry is Que Sera, Sera, what will be will be
The tech industry is rapidly evolving even the top tech experts could not even tell you how the industry will be in the next decade.
Something may be popular today then forgotten tomorrow.
My advice for anyone who is in tech or wants to get into tech is to embrace the change.
Learn to learn, become adaptable in this fast paced field that way you can always thrive regardless of what is to come.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://research.cec.sc.edu/asc
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-ihetu/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mpdoesstuff/
