Three doctor of pharmacy students from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy have been selected for the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Adams Apprenticeship. Karthik Chandrasekar, Jesse Martin and Jimmy Xu, all third-year Pharm.D. candidates, are three of the 14 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate and professional students selected for the program for 2018.
The Adams Apprenticeship trains, supports and provides a network for all UNC-Chapel Hill students who are interested in careers in entrepreneurship. The apprenticeships provide program participants with access to resources that will transform the trajectory of their careers by connecting them with an exclusive network of accomplished advisers, cocurricular coaching sessions, regional networking events and “entrepreneur treks” to New York and San Francisco. The program selected 32 graduate and undergraduate students for its 2018 class.
Xu said he applied to the apprenticeship to develop a personal board of advisers that share his passion for health-care innovation and can provide mentorship to accelerate his professional and entrepreneurial development. Xu and Martin (along with classmate Stephen McMillan) are recipients of a $25,000 grant from the Eshelman Institute for Innovation to develop a patient-retention tool for clinical trials they call TRIALLIA. Xu said he believes the EII grant made him a more competitive candidate for the apprenticeship. He expects that the knowledge and experience gained from the apprenticeship will allow the team to take their project to the next level, he said.
Xu also cited perks like national networking trips to San Francisco and New York City where apprentices are immersed in the startup culture and interact with the founders and executives of companies like Carbon, Google, IBM, LinkedIn and Chubbies.
“My health-care background has enabled me to connect with like-minded mentors that approach the world with the same sense of passion, ambition and curiosity,” Xu said.
Martin said the most exciting part of the experience is the people.
“Immersion in this network of passionate collaborators, mentors and advisors has reinforced a high-performance entrepreneurial mindset,” Martin said. “I highly recommend Adams to any student with entrepreneurial aspiration.”
Chandrasekar said his favorite memory so far is talking to John Adams, the founder of Mucinex and the apprenticeship itself.
“I would have never believed that I could have a conversation and challenge a pharmaceutical icon,” Chandrasekar said. “It is inspiring to see all of the talent around me and that makes me work to my capacity.”
All three participants said they felt they had grown professionally and personally as part of their experience.
“Each student we interviewed is extremely talented and has already demonstrated impressive accomplishments within their respective fields, which makes the selection process so hard. However, unlike other programs that may select based on academic excellence or other accolades, what really makes an apprentice stand out and what gets our advisers in the program so excited to work with them, is their undeniable passion. Whether they are building the next innovative app or a network of volunteers to help tutor impoverished youth, they are jumping out of bed each morning excited to work on what they love. ” said Callie Brauel, assistant director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at UNC Kenan-Flagler.