hey ther! My name is Anita and I’m a third year PhD student in Sociology. My route to this point in graduate school has been an interesting one. I graduated from college with a Biochemistry degree, thinking I wanted to go to medical school. After college, I served in AmeriCorps in East San Jose, CA for one year and realized how incredibly rewarding and challenging working with underserved youth is. This experience sparked a curiosity to better understand how the social environment affects one’s own health, risk-taking behaviors, and overall well-being.

I came to UCLA for the Master’s in Public Health Degree to gain more training in how communities affect individual health. I spent a summer in China working on a research project and fell in love with research… not to mention the paid for travel! Well, many years and two master’s degrees later, here I am, working on a dissertation proposal. I’ll still end up with a doctor’s degree… just not a medical one.

I wouldn’t recommend getting to where I am the way I did to others, but sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches that life hands you. I’ve been a TA in the Soc department for two years and would love to share any knowledge I have about classes, studying or getting through school. In my spare time, I love yoga, am into running marathons and just hanging out with my two cats, Cole and Ginger P.

Email me at ayuan@college.ucla.edu