Meet Diya Saigol ‘18. Diya received a BSBA and concentrated in marketing. She is currently Product Growth Lead at Meta. To get to know more about Diya and her post-graduation journey, see the Q&A below:
Q: What did you like most about the program you were in?
A: I really liked the sense of community fostered by the staff (especially Dean Reiser!) with various events like international teas, and the Questrom Honors Program which was another great way to build a close knit community.
Q: In what ways did your education at Questrom prepare you for your current role?
A: I loved my statistics and analytics courses (especially during Core) – they gave me the foundation for career in business analytics/data science
Q: Was there a particularly impactful class, skill you developed, or club you were involved with at Questrom that has shaped your career path?
A: The business analytics class during Core was super helpful, and I actually referenced my old notes when I was preparing for data science interviews (I got the offers). Core is also a great way to learn how to collaborate with coworkers. Finally, study abroad internships were a nice way to experience different office cultures and learn how to work in ambiguous and challenging environments.
Q: What is the most rewarding or challenging part of your job? Did anything from your time at Questrom help you prepare for either?
A: The most rewarding part of my job is seeing the impact of billions of users enjoying a feature that I came up with – and on a small scale, hearing about my features through friends and family. It’s also really exciting to be able to influence a large amount of people (from engineering and product management directors to UX designers) to take the decisions I think are important. The most challenging parts are the fast pace, intensity, and strong pressure to constantly be driving impact.
Q: Based on your experience, what are some effective strategies for building and maintaining a professional network?
A: Building genuine connections with coworkers and adding all coworkers on LinkedIn. The people I met at my first job (Wayfair, which recruited directly from Questrom) are now spread out among the best tech companies in the world, including Meta to which I was referred by an old Wayfair coworker who also went to BU.
Q: Please describe how you’ve stayed engaged with the Questrom community during and/or after your studies. Has the engagement influenced or supported your professional life?
A: I have continued to use the career advising services, and I credit their help and advice for how I landed my current job! So grateful to Trish & team.
Q: Do you have a fun fact or a unique story from your time at Questrom that you’d like to share?
A: My internships and first job were both through campus recruiting and jobs listed on Handshake. I actually never applied to the internship that kicked off my career, and led to me landing my Wayfair job which then led to my current job. I didn’t apply because I thought I wasn’t qualified – it was a paid advertising role and I had no experience running and optimizing paid ads. I instead applied to a social media marketing role. I was rejected for that, and they asked me whether I was interested in the paid ads role. Defeated by the rejection, I almost said no but my sister’s advice was to “never say no to an interview.” This helped me a lot early in my career – I ended up landing the job, learned so much at the internship and the rest is history. Another piece of advice is to apply for jobs you’re not fully qualified for and see if you’re still able to pass the interviews – especially women statistically don’t do this and it leaves them behind. I had no product experience before my current role in product, but I did great on the case interviews using intuition and product sense.
Q: What were the key factors that influenced your decision to choose BU and specifically Questrom for your studies? How did these factors align to career goals or outcomes?
A: I liked the city of Boston and that the campus was in the center of the city. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and wanted a degree that could apply to any job or field – this is why I chose business. I always knew I liked math and psychology, and fell into a career using both analytics and human behavior (marketing). From there I evolved into my current role, which is more technical and still focused on solving people problems – it’s a mix between data science and product management. I learned this more advanced skills on the jobs, through online courses too, and studying for interviews.
