Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the accomplished Michelle Chee, Program Manager and Mentor at Cicada Innovation's  in Episode 2 of the Pop Perceptions podcast. Michelle talks about her career progression from 'vanilla' high school student to internships in a global Med Tech firm being based in Bangalore, India at the age of 22 years old. An internship at the U.N. and more recently her work at Australia's Leading Deep Tech Incubator. This conversation is an honest and frank account of a career path that began with a Bachelor of Science, with great insights and advice for those unsure of their career direction and interested in making a difference in the new world of work.

Podcast Transcript

Bec McIntosh: Welcome to Michelle Chee Program Manager and Mentor at Cicada Innovations . Some maybe familiar with Cicada Innovations in its previous incarnation of ATP Innovations, Australia's leading Deep Tech Accelerator, so welcome to the show Michelle.

Michelle Chee: Thank you so much Bec for having me.

Bec McIntosh: It's a pleasure! So let's take it back in time to the high school years, what were you excelling at school. What were the things that you were doing, at school.

Michelle Chee: Well, in terms of academia I was pretty vanilla, not very exciting to be honest. I did a language, I studied Japanese, I did biology, chemistry. Chemistry is really interesting, I had a fantastic teacher which sparked by attention there. Even though I wasn't the best performing student she had a profound impact on me. But, during my high school years I did a lot of music. I has classical guitar lessons and was in the ensemble. I was in the choir, did singing lessons and I felt like quite a creative person and I really enjoyed that. Thinking back I really should have applied myself more, I think it was great. Something to note in high school is that I didn't really enjoy it in general. I went to an all girls catholic high school and I guess I felt I really didn't feel like I fitted in anywhere. I was the quiet one in the library not really outside talking about sport or dresses, or things like that. Something that seemed to consume the interest of others at the time.

Bec McIntosh: And did that sense of belonging change when you went to university?

Michelle Chee: Definitely

Bec McIntosh: And so the path led to a Bachelors of Science. Where did the thought processes come about in terms of you looking towards a career path in the area of Science.

Michelle Chee: So again, looking back it was that chemistry teacher that really inspired me and at this point in time I knew I wanted to to something important, or something with impact. I really did not know what was. I thought at the time, what is a problem that I face? Growing up I have had various skin issues so I thought I would study chemistry and be a chemist and work in a big corporate like L'oreal However, as I went through it things changed dramatically, particularly in the middle of my Bachelors.

Bec McIntosh: Was that a thought 'beyond the bench', that you were going to step 'outside'. Was there any particular guest speakers that came in that opened your eyes to a different world beyond the lab?

Michelle Chee: No, what I found during my Science degree was that I wasn't enjoying it that much. I found it interesting in terms of how it could be applied to technology and impact in that way. But actually doing the science, I didn't really fit in and I didn't enjoy it that much. It was a little bit isolating and I loved talking to people. So I thought I'm not seeing myself working in a lab down the track. So I was half way through and I thought I just need to finish this because it wou...