In this episode of “From the Front Row,” the hosts say goodbye to two student podcasters who are graduating. They discuss the challenges they faced during their academic journey and offer advice to incoming students. The hosts also reflect on how hosting the podcast has influenced their perspective on their field of study and improved their communication skills. They discuss the most rewarding aspects of being on the podcast and share their future plans.

Lauren Lavin:

Hello everybody and welcome back to From the Front Row. As we wrap up the academic school year, it’s also time to say goodbye to some of our student podcasters. So today we are saying goodbye to one undergraduate student and one graduate student.

We are grateful for all of the work that our students put into the podcast every single year since this is a student run and student led podcast, and we’d like to wrap up the school year with talking to our student podcasters to see what they’ve learned and gained from this experience as podcast hosts and what they’re going to be doing after they graduate.

Well, in this case, have already graduated. I’m Lauren Lavin, and today I’m joined by Rasika and Garrett. And if it’s your first time with us, welcome. We’re a student run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they’re relevant to anyone, both in and outside of the field of public health.

I’m happy to have two of our graduating members on the podcast to say goodbye this week. If I could have you guys both say your names, maybe a quick little introduction, say what you’re graduating from, that’d be great. Sika, you can go first.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Sure. I am Rasika Mukkamala and I am graduating with my Master in Health Administration from the Department of Health Management and Policy.

Lauren Lavin:

Perfect. Garrett?

Garrett Naughton:

Hey, I’m Garrett Naughton and I am graduating from the College of Public Health with an undergrad and the Bachelor of Science of public health and then minor in Microbiology, but that’s not as important.

Lauren Lavin:

It’s important too.

Garrett Naughton:

Yeah, sure.

Lauren Lavin:

Well, and we’re recording this after school’s end. I appreciate you both taking time post-graduation to come back and record this episode with me. We’re just going to kind of do a looking back on both your involvement with the podcast and kind of some of the both grad school and undergrad advice you guys have for students that listen to this podcast.

First question that I have for you guys is looking back on your journey throughout school, what was the most unexpected challenge that you faced and what advice would you have for students in overcoming that challenge if they face that same challenge?

And Rasika I’ll have you answer that question first.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Sure. I think the most unexpected challenge that I faced is just having so many opportunities and having to narrow what you’re interested in and making a decision and being confident in yourself.

I think I previously went to an institution for my undergrad degree where there was a lot of options and there was time for you to kind of be involved in everything. And I think the difference between undergraduate and grad school is just how many competing priorities you have, whether that be with work and school and extracurriculars.

You really do need to pick and choose what you’re interested in and be cognizant of the availability of the options. I chose to get involved in this podcast as well as commit my time to the Upstream initiative, which we have a previous episode on that, but really just committing to what you’re interested in and jumping head first and being confident in your decision-making.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, I think that’s really good advice and good advice for students that there will be lots of options and time is limited.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Yes, definitely.

Lauren Lavin:

Garrett?

Garrett Naughton:

Yeah, so I think part of it comes, there’s a two-part thing. I think one of it being something that I think everybody even outside of school probably struggle with is just finding that balance between all the stuff you’re doing and your regular life.

Because that can kind of get out of control and much more quickly than you might think. So I think that’s part of it, but I think the other part was specifically towards my undergrad. I came in with this idea of I was going to do hard science, I was going to be a lab bench work person, and I was like, I don’t like that.

I think just trying to find your niche and trying to find what fits best for you is going to be the most important thing, especially throughout that, like Rasika said, you have more time during undergrad. So I think utilize that when you can to try to really find what you enjoy.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, and good point about not even just prioritizing your school time, but work life balance or school life balance that if you take up all of your time on school, you also want to do friend things and fun things.

You’re only have once that part. And then good point about the undergrad that we all change our major like, four different times and that’s absolutely okay and undergrad is the time to do it. You definitely, you have at least four years, if not more, that’s fine, but with a master’s degree you only have two and you got to just stick with your two, you have less time to switch it around.

So undergrad, that’s good advice. You can come in with a plan and you can definitely change that plan and there’s nothing wrong with that because we all do it. This next question is more podcast based. How has hosting this podcast influenced your perspective on your field of study or your academic interests?

Rasika Mukkamala:

I think when I first started doing this podcast, I really wanted to do a lot of women in healthcare, women in leadership type of episodes because that is what interests me as someone who’s a woman going into leadership.

But really I think it broadened my understanding of public health as a whole because there was a lot of episodes that I did that I didn’t necessarily know the topic beforehand, but I had to do research, I had to come up with the questions and I had to get a better understanding of the topic at hand to do the podcast episode, and I think it really broadened my worldview into how some things may not, you might not directly think that their healthcare administration, but really it’s public health and healthcare administration feeds into that.

So it really broadened my understanding and it made me realize how having this background knowledge of public health and other topics like community and behavioral health or occupational health, all these fields can make a better administrator.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, background knowledge is really important for interacting with any sort of healthcare discipline.

Garrett Naughton:

For sure. I think in terms of my perspective, I have a little bit different just because I think, did we have another undergrad coming on? I think we do, but first I guess I have, trying to learn all of the different [inaudible 00:06:45] of public health was definitely really eye-opening, especially coming from a, kind of from that different background was super helpful.

And kind of realizing all of the resources that we had in terms of making those connections. We had a lot of awesome guests come through and a lot of shows we were able to do, and I think it would help build that network and just really explore all those possibilities.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, it kind gives you a unique opportunity to reach out to people that you might want to learn something about too, because it kind of gives you a reason to reach out to people, which I think is kind of fun.

Reflecting on some of those topics that you guys got to delve into or research for the podcast, what episode stands out the most to you and why it can be one that you worked on yourself or even one that you listened to and why?

Rasika Mukkamala:

Okay. This is such a hard question because I loved all the podcast episodes that I did, but there’s two, I’m going to be difficult and answer this twice, but my first one that I really enjoyed doing was the mentorship podcast with Lori Bidkey. That was last year.

I thought that was really impactful because I think mentorship, especially in health administration, is a buzzword, and I think that episode really broke it down into smaller chunks of what does it mean to be a mentor to someone and what does it mean to be a mentee to someone?

And it gave actionable items of how do you get a mentor, how do you become a mentor and those things. And so I thought that was a really great episode. And then my other episode that I did recently with our Romanian guests was really impactful because prior to that episode, I had no knowledge about the Romanian healthcare system to be a hundred percent honest.

But the guests really did a great job of talking about AI and digital healthcare, and I think it’s really interesting to talk about it in a perspective of Romania versus the United States and kind of comparing and contrasting the differences.

And so I thought that was a really eye-opening episode, so if our listeners haven’t listened to that yet, this is plug for that.

Lauren Lavin:

And I did that one with you and Laura, and one thing that really stood out to me from that one was also the idea of mentorship versus sponsorship, and that was something that I’ve not heard of and that can be really important.

Sponsorship can be really important for the workplace and moving forward too, and that’s something that I have really carried with me since that episode.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Agreed. Garrett?

Garrett Naughton:

Yeah, I mean also probably have to answer two as well because there’s one me and Rasika actually did together with Peter Teahan. Really interesting dude. He just got back from flying around the world in a single engine plane, so a really tiny plane, and I saw him at the public health conference.

I got to talk to him a little bit about that, and he told me some even more interesting stories than he told on the podcast. Well, yeah, that was a very interesting guy, and I thought I learned a lot, and he was able to, I think, advertise a lot of what he was doing at the time, which was great.

Then on my other one, just because it was a good time, was my podcast with my friend Walter who we were able to talk more about the bike library and the community engagement side of public health and how you can really see how public health gets into basically every area because health is everywhere.

Lauren Lavin:

That bike library episode was a good one, good resource in Iowa City.

Garrett Naughton:

Thank you.

Lauren Lavin:

In what ways do you think your communication skills have developed as a result of hosting this podcast, and how do you see yourself applying some of these skills that you’ve learned in your future career?

Rasika Mukkamala:

This is a great question and something that I actually brought up in a lot of my interviews when I was interviewing for fellowship this year. I think the main ways that my communication skills have developed is both oral and written as well as kind of conducting a meeting.

I know that that’s kind of different, but I think as a podcast host, we are given 30 to 45 minutes to be engaging to the viewer. As the host, you prepare all of this information, but if you have to pivot, you have to make that decision as a host to be like, I’m scrapping all the questions that I came up with, then I’m going to go this way.

Or maybe you talk really quick, and then you have to come up with things ad hoc, and that’s kind of how I think healthcare administration works in a way, is especially when you’re leading meetings, you can have an agenda. It’s great to have an agenda, but you need to be able to pivot.

And so I think that this has really given me exposure to conducting meetings in a sense with people that I’m maybe familiar with, maybe unfamiliar with, and making decisions on the spot as well as when you have a co-host, sometimes one person has to make the decision and the other person has to feed into it without, we only can make certain visual cues without interrupting the recording.

So whether that’s a side eye or messaging through Zoom or just intuition, I think that too, it’s kind of like an unspoken difficulty of being a podcast host, but I feel like that has really shaped me and my communication skills, and I know that I’m going to take that away and I’m going to continue to help do that in my fellowship and beyond.

Lauren Lavin:

Absolutely. That’s a good answer.

Garrett Naughton:

So I think there’s the difference between hosting and then also being a guest, like we’re doing right now.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Garrett Naughton:

And I think trying the best part of that communication skill was just going with the flow, the communication of the conversation, and you have a set of questions and you’re going to try to fall under the best, but if something comes up in your head in the flow and trying to keep that going, you’re going to want to do that and pivot a little bit as much as you can.

I think that flexibility is super great, especially for communication and going through healthcare with all the many, many challenges that administrators face. I think having that flexibility will definitely be super helpful throughout my career.

Lauren Lavin:

Perfect. What advice would you give to incoming students based on your experiences, both in school and as a podcast host?

Rasika Mukkamala:

I would say follow your intuition and be confident in yourself. I think I came into my program knowing exactly what I was going to do when I left my program. I knew that I was going to do an administrative fellowship.

I knew the things that I wanted to get involved in, and that’s just kind of the person that I am, and I know that not everyone is like that, but I think if you in your heart know that you are passionate about a topic, whether that be operations, rural health, urban health, public health, whatever it is.

If in your heart that that’s why you came to do this program, follow your heart, follow your intuition, and find things to supplement what your interests are instead of, and it’s okay to have an open mind too, but if you know that you’re interested in something, you should do whatever you can to supplement your interests.

And I think being a podcast host has really supplemented my experience because I knew that I was interested in doing a fellowship and found guests who either had done a fellowship or related to a fellowship or related to health administration to get a better understanding of the field and to further my knowledge and interests about my field as a whole.

Lauren Lavin:

Right. Yeah. You can really use the podcast to further some of your own interests.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Yeah, definitely.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah.

Garrett Naughton:

I think a good part of that too is also trying to allow yourself to make mistakes. Because that’s a huge part I think of this period as a whole is to make as many mistakes as you can and then learn from them.

I think that’s been my motto for forever. So trying to do your best to make the right decisions, but understand that you definitely don’t know everything and trying to just learn as much as possible.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And kind of along the lines of the last question too, I think the podcasts in particular are so conversational, and I think that makes, it’s just such a skill that you’re going to use the rest of your life.

Incoming students that are interested in being a part of a podcast, whether it’s at the University of Iowa or another institution, if you’re listening and not around here, I think that’s a skill that you’ll continue to use throughout the rest of your life, and if it’s something that you’re looking to practice, I think it’s just a really important skill to develop, learning how to ask questions and be an engaged listener.

I think. Yeah, my advice is if you’re looking to practice that skill, this podcast is a great way to practice it, and that’s the skill that you’re going to continue to utilize for the rest of your life, both in your career and outside of it.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Definitely.

Lauren Lavin:

Were there any moments during the podcast recordings that significantly changed your understanding or opinion on a particular topic? And if so, can you share one of those moments with that?

Rasika Mukkamala:

I think mine would be during the most recent episode that I did about the CAMBUS with Dr. Ken Anderson, he talked a lot about working as a team and how creating the CAMBUS really stemmed from just the idea that people were waiting out in the cold in Iowa and to get from one place to another.

And I think as simple as that sounds, it just made me think a lot about how a lot of interventions are just based on choosing, you need to make something better because there’s a problem. And I think when I first started being in public health, I kind of was just like, okay, we’ve created penicillin, we’ve created washing hands.

We hear all of these things that have been done so far in the past and we’ve just been doing them. But then to think about the CAMBUS was not that long ago, and that was a need that people felt needed to be solved.

And so kind of just opened my eyes to, if I see inequities or if I see problems, I need to be the one to be like, Hey, that’s a problem, and maybe I’m not going to be the one to solve it, but at least bringing it to other people’s attention because that’s how problems get solved is by someone spearheading that.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great example.

Garrett Naughton:

Yeah. I’m trying to think. I think one of my first episodes I helped co-host, oh, that was a while ago now. I can’t even remember what the episode name was, but we were talking a lot about environmental health and especially within agriculture, and I think that’s not something I really had considered before. I’m coming not from Iowa, but from Illinois.

So we have a lot of farms, but not where I live. So thinking about that and trying to see how much public health works its way into there, there’s a whole field within environmental public health that I found actually really interesting for sure, and how it applies to especially agriculture, and because agriculture and environmental and occupational safety all applies to farmers.

So I think, and rural health always has, its very unique set of challenges that we have always have to try to work around, and I think considering that is always a good thing to think about.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, sometimes it’s just a new topic that opens your eyes to something that you didn’t even know before that shifts your perspective on something.

How has collaborating with other student hosts enriched your experience? That can be academically or personally throughout the process of hosting podcasts?

Rasika Mukkamala:

Yeah, I think especially last year, we had a lot of different disciplines that took the podcast, and even this year too, we have a wide variety of people with a wide variety of interests.

And so I always think, for those of you who don’t know, we have monthly podcast meetings where we always talk about ideas and how we want to execute our vision. And so I think it’s always nice to hear what other people’s ideas are, because sometimes I’m like, oh, I didn’t even know that existed.

The bike library one, I was like, I had no idea what that was, or there was an episode that we did about the clothing closet too, which was great, and the food pantry, all these things. I am not from Iowa City. And so knowing that there were people who were kind of there before me. Some people had done undergrad there, some people are from Iowa.

So just hearing their ideas and being more exposed to what Iowa City and Johnson County have to offer, I think was really Enriching and just good to know so that I could use those resources. Or in my work when I’m working with patients or other administrators, they’re like, oh, I see this problem. Did you know that the University of Iowa has a clothing closet?

Just having those resources and learning about them through my peers was really cool and a great experience.

Lauren Lavin:

I think having an interdisciplinary team of podcast hosts makes the diversity of topics so much better because if you have people from the same department proposing ideas, it tends to be a really narrow focus because we all are engaged in the same activities, same studies, and so I think the more broad of a group of students we can have, the more interesting and expansive the topics get.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Totally.

Garrett Naughton:

And then going off of that is trying to apply as many perspectives as you can. And I think what I found was super cool. I able to, I worked with Anya, the last podcast director from, was that a year ago now? I think.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah.

Garrett Naughton:

Yeah. Wow. Advice. But I worked with her on a different project completely, and I was able to utilize that connection, and I saw that’s kind what taught me how you can really get all these opportunities from different connections you make, and this podcast is open my world up to even more amount, numbers, connections.

So I think that learning how to properly utilize that skill and leveraging those connections was awesome, and learning a lot from all these awesome graduate and doctoral people, especially being an undergrad because that perspective I hadn’t really considered because it was never really on my radar for sure, because that seemed pretty hard.

Lauren Lavin:

I love that. Finally, what’s been the most rewarding aspect of being on this podcast, and what will you miss the most about being involved?

Rasika Mukkamala:

I think the most rewarding aspect of this podcast has just been the people that we’ve been able to reach and the impact that we’ve been able to have.

Our marketing team here at the College of Public Health, they often send out updates of how many views we had, how many listened, where they’re from, and it’s always cool to think about how our voices as graduate and undergraduate students are being listened to in multiple countries or in multiple states.

And I didn’t know that it was that wide of a reach when I started, so that’s really cool just to hear that someone else could get something out of our podcast, even though we are just doing this for fun type thing. And I think the thing that I’ll miss the most is whenever I tell people that I’m a part of a podcast, they’re always like, oh my gosh, you have a podcast?

And I just love talking more about, oh, it’s like the College of Public Health podcast. It’s a hundred percent student run. To see people’s faces when they hear that graduate students and undergraduate students are managing an entire podcast is always pretty cool. So I’m definitely going to miss that, and I’m going to miss finding people to record with and just listening to myself talk.

You have to love that if you’re a podcaster. Am I right?

Lauren Lavin:

You are right. No, I think these are all really great points. It is really unique to have an entirely student run podcast, and we have, that reminds me, I need to have Mitch or Dan send over the updated dash.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Yeah. We haven’t done that in a while.

Lauren Lavin:

For review. Because it is really incredible how many listens that we have and where all of the people are listening from, so that everyone, but it is really amazing, and I’m super grateful for all of the effort that they put into it every week too, in addition to us.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Dan, Mitch, if you’re listening, thank you.

Lauren Lavin:

They are. They listen every week. They check the podcast for us.

Garrett Naughton:

Yeah, I think kind of going past as a part of the last question, learning from all these cool people and trying to make awesome episodes has been a super rewarding aspect.

But I think also, I’ve always had a passion for media and developing media, and I think that’s kind of an area of public health. I mean, that is a super useful tool, especially in trying to increase awareness or spread different ideas. And I’ve been able to utilize a lot of those skills during the podcast, and if it takes me somewhere, it does if it doesn’t.

But I at least got a chance to practice being a part of a media team and doing some really cool stuff in terms of hosting different episodes, and I thought that was super rewarding as a part of trying to learn more about public health and just trying to do fun activities as well while I’m here in undergrad.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, I don’t think you’ll ever regret learning how to communicate complex ideas, so yeah, I don’t think that’ll ever go to waste. Well, great answers.

Let’s close this out by each of you saying what you’re going to be doing next year or future school plans, work plans, all of that sort of thing.

Rasika Mukkamala:

I’m very glad to be done with school. I will be moving to Omaha, Nebraska to do an administrative fellowship at Common Spirit Health.

Lauren Lavin:

Yay.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Yay.

Garrett Naughton:

Yeah. So I’ve completed my undergrad, and currently I’m actually working for, well, I work for board organizations, but I’m a program coordinator right now through AmeriCorps, but I’m working for the Iowa Public Health Association and the Midwest Public Health Training Center.

Lauren Lavin:

Cool.

Garrett Naughton:

I’m a program coordinator for the Workforce Coalition. I’m helping develop basically a group that’s going to be utilizing different resources, workforce development resources to try and create this coalition to further improve workplace benefits within public health specifically.

And I’ll be doing that until November when my service ends. I’m helping with different administration stuff for them. And then I’m also working at the hospital right now as a staffing coordinator, which is super, a lot of work, but it’s a pretty good job, and it’s giving me a lot of hospital and experience, which has been pretty cool.

And then past that, we will see. I have no clue, but something hopefully.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s okay. Perfect. Well, I appreciate you guys taking time out of your day, and I appreciate all of the work that you’ve put into the podcast while you’ve been working on it, and I can’t wait to see what you both do in the next couple of years.

I’ll still be around. I’m going to be the producer for the podcast next year, and we’ll still do episodes over the summer, so stay tuned.

Rasika Mukkamala:

And if you ever need an episode with the administrative fellow. You have my-

Lauren Lavin:

We know where to find you. Okay. Well, thank you both. I appreciate you being on it.

Rasika Mukkamala:

Yeah, thank you.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s it for our episode this week. Thank you to Rasika and Garrett for joining us today and for being involved in from the front row during their tenure as College of Public Health students.

This episode was hosted and written by Lauren Lavin and edited and produced by Lauren Lavin. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple podcasts and SoundCloud.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like to help support the podcast, please share it with your colleagues, friends, or anyone interested in public health. Have a suggestion for our team. You can reach us at CPH-gradambassador[at]uiowa.edu.

This episode is brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious, and take care.