July 2017 Graduate

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Where are you from, or where do you consider home?

I was born in India, built a decade of life in the United States, and chose Canada — deliberately. Home, for me, is not geography. It is wherever I am constructing something meaningful. Right now, that is Canada.

Three words to describe your experience at Northeastern:

Transformative. Expansive. Foundational.

What motivated you to continue through challenging times in obtaining your degree?

Tenacity, honestly, and the quiet certainty that discomfort is not the same thing as being on the wrong path. I was an international student navigating a new country, a new system, and the weight of building something with no safety net beneath me. What kept me going was a belief I still hold: that difficulty is not a detour. It is the material. Every hard semester was teaching me how to hold complexity without breaking — which, as it turns out, is the exact skill the pharmaceutical industry rewards most.

What has your journey revealed to you about yourself?

That I am someone who belongs at the act of creating meaning — transforming thought into intentional action, so that my life becomes a string of moments ready for introspection. Between science and strategy. Between structure and storytelling. Northeastern didn’t hand me a career path. It handed me a lens, and through it, I saw that I was never meant to follow a single road. I am built for convergence: for asking what connects regulatory frameworks to human outcomes, what connects business operations to strategy, what connects a demanding career to a quiet creative life. That revelation, that I don’t have to choose between my complexities, has shaped everything since.

Experiential learning is a core component of a Northeastern education. Describe some of the highlights for you.

Northeastern taught me to stop separating the classroom from the world. This started with who I shared the classroom with. The learning was never didactic. Conversations were never preachy. They were geared towards practical application, shaped by people already living inside the industries we studied. The program’s insistence on applied learning meant I wasn’t studying regulation in the abstract. I was learning to think like someone who would one day sit in rooms where decisions about medicines and markets are made. That shift, from student to practitioner-in-training, was decisive. It gave me a working instinct I carried straight into Big Pharma with the understanding that knowledge means nothing until it moves through the real world and touches something that matters.

Where do you imagine yourself five years from now?

I never landed a co-op (not for lack of trying). But within two months of graduating, I had my first role in Big Pharma. And I never left. Eight years later, I’m still in the industry, which tells me that Northeastern taught me something more lasting than a placement. It taught me to stop separating the classroom from the world. What stayed with me from Northeastern was not a single opportunity, but a way of thinking: treating learning as something inseparable from the real decisions, constraints, and responsibilities of professional life.

Stop looking for the one right path. There isn’t one. I graduated expecting to work in regulatory affairs. And I do, in spirit. But the career I love most, Medical Affairs, was a door I didn’t know existed until I was already inside. Seven years later, I can tell you the most interesting careers are not planned. They are noticed. They are noticed by people who stay curious enough to look sideways while everyone else stares straight ahead. I would also tell people to build transferable instincts. Learn to communicate across functions, cultures, and ambiguities. Lastly, please do not abandon the parts of yourself that don’t fit on a résumé. I published a book of stories and poetry while working in global pharma. Your career is what you do. It is not all of who you are. Protect the rest.

Your career is what you do. It is not all of who you are. Protect the rest.

Dheeraj Vemuganti

Connect with Dheeraj on LinkedIn.