Bellisario College student is a conqueror of comfort zones

This is the second in a series of stories about Bellisario College students completing summer internships.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Coming out of high school in India, Vrinda Agarwal was ready to step 8,000 miles out of her comfort zone.

A born introvert, Agarwal decided attending college at a university she’d never heard of in a country she’d never been to was the best opportunity to redefine herself.

“I wanted to go somewhere where I didn’t know anyone. I found Penn State and liked the program,” she said. “Here I was a blank slate, and I liked that.”

Sight unseen, she decided on the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, and just a week before her first semester began in 2019, she took her first step onto American soil.

Three years later, she has built an impressive resume, which includes several student groups and internships, while working toward two degrees — public relations and human centered design and development. Agarwal also has helped to make the Bellisario College a better place for international students like herself.

This summer, she is interning with Edelman DXI, a company that processes the data and analytics for the global communications firm Edelman. Over the next couple of months, she will work with the company’s audience insights team, which is a part of Edelman DXI’s marketing operation.

“The team does audience profiling and segmentation for its clients,” Agarwal said. Her work gives organizations a “detailed idea of who their audience is and how they can reach them most effectively.”

Agarwal is tasked with getting to know more about profiling clients. She said this involves learning about different data management and analysis tools that Edelman DXI uses, and understanding the process of analyzing data.

“We use that data to craft a story,” she said. “I am undergoing a lot training with the team, as well as working on a summer project that will allow me to put all the skills I am acquiring to produce something tangible by the end of the internship.”

The position is remote, but just two weeks in, Agarwal said the experience has been amazing. She is excited about what the rest of the summer has in store.

“I don’t think I have learned so much in my life than I have in these two weeks, and I am certain that the next 10 to 12 weeks are going to be full of learning, enriching experiences, and meeting amazing people at the agency.”

The position perfectly combines Agarwal’s interests of communication with human experience. One of the things that drew her to Penn State was its renowned communications program at the Bellisario College. Communications degrees are not common at colleges in India.

During her first year at University Park, Agarwal signed up for as many clubs and student groups she had time for. She found a home with Happy Valley Comm, a student group that assists campus and local businesses with their public relations and marketing needs. This past year, she was the group’s vice president, and she will be its president this fall.

“Vrinda is incredibly driven and effectively supports that passion for learning through exceptional organizational skills,” said Austin Berry, recent Penn State graduate and former president of Happy Valley Comm. “She puts 110% into everything she touches, and I am excited to see where she takes HVC.”

While Agarwal enjoyed certain aspects of the public relations field, something was missing. She began to seek ways to enhance her time at Penn State. She found a major out of Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology that piqued her interest — human centered design and development.

“I realized I wanted to do something more technical,” she said. “A lot of what I was doing in PR was user-facing stuff. I realized understanding users and what they like is a major component of communications.”

Agarwal thought double-majoring would be a way to combine her recent public relations skills with new technical skills.

“Vrinda’s choice to double major in public relations as well as human centered design and development was incredibly wise,” Berry said. “Her cross-disciplinary experience will set her up to fill highly specialized roles at a PR agency.”

Berry added that Agarwal is not afraid to challenge the status quo, offer up new ideas, and commit to positive changes. During her first year at Penn State, Agarwal brought this same energy to Gary Abdullah, assistant dean for diversity and inclusion at the Bellisario College. She wanted to create more opportunities for international students.

“I felt lost at first when I got here,” Agarwal said. “I spoke to Gary and told him that I thought we could do more to help international and minority students feel more included. He told me he was looking for a team to start BAMS [Bellisario Alliance for Multicultural Students] and would I like to join?”

“I told him, ‘of course I want do this,’” she said. “It was great timing. We’ve been able to do a lot in just one year.”

Eighty students have already joined BAMS. Its membership is growing, and it continues to promote an accepting and welcoming atmosphere at the Bellisario College.

BAMS represents a long-lasting effect of Agarwal’s dramatic departure from her comfort zone. She is graduating next year, and she said the group is in good hands. She also is pleased with the amount of support it gets from the Bellisario College.

As for the future, Agarwal hopes to get a full-time job with Edelman DXI or with a similar company that seeks to understand how people live, think and work. Overall, she just wants to keep learning and building her skillset.

If it requires stepping out of another comfort zone, so be it.

She is ready.