As part of his international economics degree, Pedro Ramos (BIE ‘21) had the opportunity to work two co-op jobs, one at the Alzheimer’s Society of B.C and one at Mitacs.
Ramos worked as a data coordinator at the Alzheimer’s Society of B.C, a non-profit organization that helps people with disabilities and creates awareness about dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, where he had multiple responsibilities.
“On the research team, I took care of databases with information of donors, where I cleaned, exported, and analyzed data to improve complaints from people, learned about retention rates, and looked for trends to optimize campaigns,” he said.
At Mitacs, an organization aiming to connect academia with industry professionals and help facilitate study abroad experiences, Pedro worked as an international partnership coordinator, a fairly new position to the organization.
“I analyzed the data from deals we had, wrote new contracts, and did research on which governments or programs we could approach and offer a deal to,” he said.
Ramos learned about data collection and analysis as part of his BIE studies, and he said the co-ops gave him the opportunity to apply this knowledge in a real-world, practical setting.
“I wasn’t sure what my interest was within economics, so these jobs really helped me narrow down my interests and learn what I wanted to pursue in the future,” he said. “I love data, the interpretation of numbers, and statistics, and want to ideally work with that.”
Pedro considers the co-op program a great asset and valuable experience that helped strengthen his resolve when faced with challenges in the workplace.
“The work environment was very different from the university environment, because I always felt that my actions would impact the rest of the team, so I was conscious about that,” he said.
“My biggest challenge was being communicative with my team, as I’m an introvert otherwise, but I managed to put myself out there over time and it really helped me open up.”
To learn more about co-op at UBC, click here.
