How the pandemic has changed the career landscape

Professor Debra Salvucci
Former Dean of the Meehan School of Business

How have recent events changed the landscape in  business administration and the careers for which it prepares students?

Business education has become even more relevant as we look to the issues that were brought to the forefront during the pandemic, such as using and understanding data in problem-solving and communication, supply chain management, effectively managing and motivating employees in a remote environment, health and safety regulations and laws, cybersecurity, and the business of pharma, biotech and healthcare organizations.

What type of experiences will best serve young graduates as they enter the workforce in the coming years?

Experiential learning activities where students are required to think critically, work with diverse groups of individuals and understand cultural differences and the continuous pursuit of knowledge to enhance social inclusion, active citizenship, personal/professional development and employability.

How do you envision technology impacting this field in the next five years?

Emerging technologies and artificial intelligence were instrumental in developing COVID-19 vaccines in record time. They will continue to be used in all facets of business organization to identify and develop new products, for customer relationship management, and to grow revenue and profits by increasing operational efficiencies.

Take advantage of the many educational opportunities available that focus on the future of business, social responsibility and technological advancements. Become well rounded, reach outside your comfort zone to get to know people and things that are different from you, and allow intellectual curiosity to make you into a lifelong learner.

Professor John Balint
Computer Science Department

How do you envision technology impacting data science in the next five years?

It isn’t so much that technology will impact this field as that this field will impact our current technology. For example, companies like Amazon and Netflix will continue to be giants in many peoples’ lives, and their recommendation systems come from the field of data science. As the field progresses, the technologies that such companies develop will become even more ubiquitous in our daily lives.

What general advice would you give to an incoming student considering this field?

There are many different niches in this field. While all of them are technical in nature, they each require different soft skills. Plan on diversifying the types of classes that you take while at Stonehill, and truly take advantage of getting a liberal arts education.

Are there any particularly good places in the United States for graduates to find work opportunities in data science after they graduate?

There are several career opportunities right in our own backyard. Boston and New York City are hubs for data science. In Boston, there are many opportunities now in the medical sector, and in New York in the financial sector. In reality, anywhere that has a lot of tech jobs (the Bay Area, the Northeast, Chicago, Austin [Texas], the Pacific Northwest) is going have a lot of data science jobs.

Professor Jared Green
Digital Humanities Program Director

How have recent events changed the digital humanities career landscape?

I’d venture to say that we have all come to recognize as never before how truly indispensable social media and internet-linked technologies have become to our ability to remain connected and resilient in the face of extraordinary adversity. Many workplaces, having shifted to a remote work environment, will likely opt to keep at least a portion of the labor force working from home, so a facility with the skill set that digital humanities study provides will be necessary for virtually any career path.

What type of experiences will best serve students as they launch their careers in the coming years?

Digital humanities helps students understand the human dimensions around digital culture and also provides them with vital tools for analyzing and working with data. Students who take advantage of our digital humanities training — including data mining and analysis, data visualization, basic coding, web design, internet entrepreneurship, and other invaluable ways of working in digital environments — will have a measurable, practical advantage as they take their first steps into the digitally shaped work environments that will likely define their career trajectories.

What general advice would you give to an incoming student considering this discipline?

Digital humanities is a great way to bridge your passions and interests. Whether you consider yourself inclined toward the sciences, the humanities or somewhere in between, all it takes is a curiosity about the ways in which digital culture has shaped what it means to be human and how the humanities can help us shape digital culture for a sustainable and equitable future. It’s an exciting time to be doing this kind of work!

Professor Mitch Glavin
Healthcare Administration Department Chair

How have recent events changed the healthcare administration landscape and the careers for which it prepares students?

COVID-19 has highlighted underlying inadequacies and inequities in access to clinical care resources and also to public health services and other social services that support and promote health. Going forward, we need greater emphasis on preventive care and wellness promotion in community settings and less emphasis on our healthcare delivery system that has been based so much on complex acute care provided within large institutions. The pandemic also brought to the forefront an array of concerns relating to supply chain management in healthcare, such as the supply and distribution of personal protective equipment and vaccines. The Healthcare Supply Chain Management Initiative at Stonehill provides students with opportunities to explore this domain of healthcare. There is a huge amount of work to be done, but the exciting news for students is that there are so many niches in health and healthcare where they can contribute during their careers.

What type of experiences will best serve young graduates as they enter the workforce in the coming years?

Learning to be effective management leaders is critical to the future of healthcare. To that end, the healthcare administration (HCA) major requires completion of a 400-hour internship with a healthcare organization. Before graduating, many students complete a second part-time internship or a volunteer experience with a health or human services organization.

Another key for students is the close working relationships the HCA program has established with a number of professional organizations such as the American College of Healthcare Executives and the National Association of Health Services Executives. Stonehill students routinely participate in these organizations’ events to dialogue with active healthcare professionals and to tap into various resources (including mentors) that these organizations make available.

How do you envision technology impacting this field in the next five years?

One of the biggest developments for healthcare during 2021 was the major shift to more telehealth and online provision of care services. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will also have a significant impact on health and healthcare in the coming years. These tools can be used in many ways, ranging from drug discovery to interpretation of radiology scans. Data analytics and infrastructure will be essential tools for appropriate, secure and effective coordination and execution of knowledge.

Professor Katharine Harris
Health Science Program Director

How have recent events changed the health science landscape and the careers for which it prepares students?

This has been the most challenging time in modern history. We’ve witnessed the heroic efforts of doctors and nurses in saving many lives during the pandemic. An infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has become a household name, and public health officials have directed our behavior for more than 16 months, and continue to do so. We’ve learned we have work to do in order for each American to have equal access to healthcare. The disparities in healthcare have become magnified and pose the next great challenge for emerging leaders in health science and healthcare administration to tackle. Studying health science at Stonehill — with our partnership with the Healthcare Administration Department — is a great place to start.

How do you envision technology impacting this field in the next five years?

Advances in medicine brought to fruition by technology in bioinformatics have enabled vaccines for an infectious virus — the virus that causes COVID-19 — to be developed in less than a year’s time. The development of an effective vaccine for COVID-19 and the biotechnology of mRNA-based vaccines will have a lasting impact on the field of medicine and pharmaceutical therapeutics for years to come. The pivot to these types of vaccines brought on by the global pandemic has allowed the scientific and medical community another route to provide safe and effective vaccines.

What general advice would you give to an incoming student considering this field?

Keep an open mind and put your best foot forward in each of your classes as a new student on campus. You never know what subject and subfield will strike you as the most exciting thing you’ve ever heard and spark an interest that can determine your path moving forward. Studying health science at Stonehill allows for a very broad scientific foundation along with introductory coursework for health professional graduate programs, and there is a lot of support on campus to pursue your dreams. Hold space for yourself to discover what you love and use the first couple of years on campus to get involved with the community and begin to carve your path.

Professor Robert Spencer
Associate Professor of Management

How do you envision technology impacting management careers in the next five years?

The need to be able to collaborate remotely has accelerated technology use exponentially. Students need to expect this to have an impact on onboarding, training, teamwork collaboration and jobsite learning.

What general advice would you give to an incoming student considering this field?

Students need to embrace the nuances of the remote world, where they can never truly be out of the virtual office.

What type of experiences will best serve young graduates as they enter the workforce in the coming years?

I think the experiential learning consulting engagements my students do in their capstone course are immensely beneficial, as they seek to recommend value-added strategies to address the real-world problems that a host of national, regional and local companies are faced with as the economy struggles to adapt to new challenges in a world that has pivoted to e-commerce. The key to success will lie with those who are agile and responsive to the changes affecting all markets.

Professor Eddie Rhee
Marketing Program Director

How has the past year changed the marketing landscape and the careers for which it prepares students?

The trend toward digital marketing was happening even before the pandemic, but it has been accelerated by the pandemic.

What type of experiences will best serve young graduates as they enter the workforce in the coming years?

On top of learning about basic marketing topics, having the internship experience of working with marketing people in firms would be a great asset.

What general advice would you give to an incoming student considering this field?

As opposed to the perception about marketing in the general public, marketing principles can be applied to not just advertising and promotion but also broad fields such as sports, healthcare, education, finance and nonprofit organizations. Marketing knowledge could offer a great opportunity for your future career.

Professor James Bohn
Music Program Director, Music Technology Program Director

How have recent events changed the music industry and the careers your students seek?

The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to performers, but composers, songwriters and lyricists have fared somewhat better. Another group of musicians that has fared much better than others has been those with the ability to record and produce their own music. Composers who make a living off of music licensed for film, television, video games and multimedia largely earn income from past work. While there was definitely a slump in production of new media (film and television in particular), such media is definitely beginning to return, and composers of music for licensing libraries have been able to spend the pandemic bolstering their libraries of cues.

How do you envision technology evolving in this field over the next several years?

While live performances were largely shut off during the pandemic, the distribution of recorded music has remained strong, particularly among artists who used the lockdown and subsequent quarantine to record and self-produce albums. Other music groups created albums by having band members record their tracks individually at their home studios, and then collaborate by sending the tracks to each other through the internet, ultimately resulting in completed albums. Social media has also become a vital resource to connect artists and their audience.

What general advice would you give to an incoming student considering this discipline?

While we surface from a devastating pandemic, we emerge a little wiser with the knowledge that despite our technological advancements we are not immune from the specter of infectious disease. For musicians, it seems evident that the greatest skills to hedge one’s bets against such a catastrophic eventuality are being able to build a devoted following on social media, being able to create compelling performances on intimate virtual platforms, being able to monetize social networks through crowdfunding and virtual events/concerts, being able to self-record and self-produce, and being able to write/compose music.

Professor Nicole Cyr
Neuroscience Program Director

How has the past year changed the neuroscience landscape and the careers for which it prepares students?

Students studying neuroscience often enter careers in scientific research and medicine. A direct result of the pandemic has been the enormous investment in and support of vaccine development by not only scientists and aspiring scientists, but also the public. The world has witnessed scientists come together to develop lifesaving vaccines in a manner and timeline that are unprecedented. Students entering careers in scientific research and medicine now feel an increased sense of value in their career paths. Unfortunately, the pandemic has also led to a mental health crisis, which will need to be addressed for years to come. Therefore, careers that help us better understand the neuroscience underlying mental health disorders and careers that provide support for those experiencing these conditions are critical. In addition, the importance of public health in the practice and study of medicine has been highlighted during the pandemic, which has opened new avenues of investigation and new career paths.

How do you envision technology impacting this field in the next five years?

Over the next five years, bioinformatics, big data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) will lead technology in neuroscience. Bioinformatics facilitates genetic and proteomic research and can be a powerful tool to aid drug and vaccine development. Techniques used to analyze big data will help scientists map neurons of the brain and all their connections. AI will improve prosthetics and diagnoses for neurological diseases. Finally, collaboration is essential to the field of neuroscience. All of us have become Zoom experts as a result of the pandemic — it’s a useful communication tool, especially with long-distance collaborations.

What general advice would you give to an incoming student considering this field?

Neuroscience is a large, interdisciplinary, multifaceted field. Take your time learning about different aspects of neuroscience and find the one that really fascinates you. Then, focus on that with courses and hands-on learning.

Professor Guiru Gu
Physics & Astronomy Department

How have recent events changed the landscape in this area of study and the careers for which it prepares students?

As an emerging technology, photonics has played vital roles in fighting COVID-19 — from detection and diagnosis to tracking disease progression and facilitating the development of vaccines.

Other important areas for photonics are transportation technologies such as lidar for self-driving vehicles and quantum photonics. The Department of Defense and NASA continue to fund photonic projects for cyber communication, quantum computing and other cutting-edge areas of technology. Google and Amazon as well want to have proprietary computer chips that are faster, cooler and more secure than their competitors’.

What type of experiences will best serve young graduates as they enter the workforce in the coming years?

Both basic knowledge in manufacturing and photonics and practical hands-on experience are necessary for the industry workforce. Students greatly benefit from hands-on lab training in the photonics lab, where they are exposed to new equipment and measurement processes. Along those lines, employers will undoubtedly benefit from our graduates’ strong backgrounds, hands-on skills, careful working attitudes and enthusiasm for learning.

How do you envision technology impacting this field in the next five years?

Photonics technology is growing so quickly that we can imagine the integrated photonics field will be growing just as quickly as new applications are rapidly created and adopted. Projections reveal impacts in the following fields:

1. High-speed and high-throughput communication
2. Compact high-sensitivity chemical sensing and medical measurement
3. Next-generation high-speed photonics chips for parallel computing
4. Highly integrated photonics integrated circuits
5. High-precision lidar for autonomous driving
6. Quantum photonics