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Austin Pickens
- Current City
"Boston"
- Area of Study
"Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition"
- Graduation Year
"2013"
- Current Occupation
"Data Scientist"
- Why did you choose WCU?
"I liked the small classroom sizes, which meant more time personally interacting with
the professors."
- Did you complete an internship while at WCU?
"No, I went to graduate school for a PhD instead."
- Advice for graduating seniors in your field?
"Stay diverse in your skill set. If becoming a dietician is not for you, I would highly
recommend going for a MS or PhD and working on the research side of nutrition. There
are also many dual PhD/RD programs available. Sharpen your statistical analyses skills,
and teach yourself programming languages to analyze data such as R, python, and SAS
to stay competitive."
- Is there anything you would do differently?
"No, merging nutrition, analytical chemistry, and data science was an excellent decision.
The classes in the Nutrition & Dietetics major make you well diversified, especially
if you want to combine nutrition other fields."
- Best memory of your time at WCU?
"Spending time with my nutrition friends and professors, working with students at
the Learning Assistance and Resource Center, and performing research in Jim Pruitt's
lab at the Chemistry department."
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