Student Spotlight: Pivoting from Medical School to a Master's Degree

How Miriam Desta (MIIPS ‘25) transitioned from a medical background into a future leader of products and services in the healthcare field

Miriam Desta (MIIPS ‘25) originally planned to be a doctor when she pursued her undergraduate degree in Cognitive Science with a focus on Neuroscience at the University of Virginia (UVA). 

Those plans changed when she took a neuroscience seminar course focused on social relationships. In the course, students were asked, “How is technology trying to mimic human emotion?” This one question changed her perspective and path— and she diverged from her medical school plans. 

While Miriam was still interested in working in the medical field, her future took on a different look when she pictured it—one related to user experiences. 

After researching the intersection between products and services and the healthcare field, she stumbled upon user experience design (UX). This piqued her interest, and she continued to explore UX further alongside her work in epilepsy research. 

Miriam realized that she needed to go to graduate school to advance her career. That is when she came across the Master of Integrated Innovation for Products & Services (MIIPS) degree at Carnegie Mellon University's Integrated Innovation Institute.

The Fast Facts: A Summary of Miriam's Time in the MIIPS  Program

Finding a Home at MIIPS 🏡

• Chose the MIIPS program for its transparent outcomes
• Loved the interdisciplinary approach to learning 
• Enjoys exploring Pittsburgh

Bonding Over Capstone 📒

• Getting to know people through the project
• Working with Magna International 

Working within Innovative Healthcare 🩺

• Venture Intern at LifeX Accelerator 
• Product Designer Intern at Sun Life

What’s Next 🎓

• Returning to the Washington Metro area 
• Hoping to visit Thailand someday 
• Ready to enter the healthcare field with products and services

Finding a Home at MIIPS

When researching master’s degree options, Miriam found something about the MIIPS program that stuck out—the transparency around student success and career outcomes after graduation. She felt that not many other programs offered this type of transparency to her. Since pursuing her graduate degree would be a large investment, she wanted to know that it would be worth it, and she felt that with MIIPS. 

Miriam’s must-have list for a graduate program included “learning from people, a project-based curriculum, and that I will get a job afterward.”

The interdisciplinary learning style showed her that she would learn more about UX design to implement it in the workforce rather than working in a silo. 

At first, Miriam did not realize that the MIIPS program was in Pittsburgh, but the city surprised her with its medium-sized charm. Exploring downtown Pittsburgh has been one of her favorite parts of the experience, as she frequently visits the small coffee shops. 

The MIIPS program lived up to Miriam’s expectations regarding interdisciplinary education. 

“If you take time at the beginning to work in each of the domains of business, design, and engineering, it can be fruitful.” In addition to learning about those different domains, Miriam also learned about her classmates' learning styles and how to collaborate with those from different professional and educational backgrounds. However, the best part of the program has been getting to know her classmates.

Bonding Over Capstone

Miriam names getting to know her classmates as one of the best parts of the program. The capstone project, the cornerstone of the MIIPS program and part of the Integrated Product Development course, was one experience that cemented the bond with her classmates.

The capstone project spans a semester, pairing student teams with a corporate sponsor. The sponsor provides a problem statement, and students are challenged to create a product or service solution. Capstone is intense, rigorous, and rewarding— and throughout many late-night working sessions, Miriam felt herself getting closer to her classmates. Miriam and her teammates constantly pivoted upon their solutions as part of the Magna International capstone team. After gathering and analyzing data from user interviews, they often found that the data did not align with their solution. This caused them to pivot— a crucial part of the innovation process, allowing them to adjust, regroup, and ultimately create a better solution.

“Working with that group, we ended up becoming friends by the end of the semester, and late nights during capstone were my favorite part.”

 

Throughout the capstone project, students are challenged to apply their skills and collaborate with others outside of their domains and interests. Even though her capstone was focused on energy solutions rather than the medical field, Miriam enjoyed the process and ended up loving it because the project was hers. 

“I like going into a new domain and not knowing a lot, and then I end up learning a bunch.” 

Working within Innovative Healthcare

Miriam has accumulated industry experience outside of the classroom through her various internship experiences. Her most recent experience was with LifeX accelerator, a health accelerator in Pittsburgh that matches interns with up-and-coming startups to match interests and expertise. 

She credits the startup environment for helping her see the problem more clearly. “Bigger corporations can reach more people, but startups can reach the problem”.

At LifeX, Miriam worked with Gynuin, a women’s health startup, to help solve medical problems related to post-placental IUD migration. Working at Gynuin, Miriam felt as though she had an impact on the healthcare field while also integrating her MIIPS knowledge. 

For the required summer internship experience, Miriam dove back into the product design and user experience space as a Product Design intern at Sun Life. 

What’s Next

Originally from the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area, Miriam hopes to return to the area at some point. She hopes that post-graduation will lead her to Thailand to celebrate her achievements. 

As for career aspirations and plans, she is considering a few options. She has her sights set on either product design roles in healthcare or entering a tech organization’s health spinoff. Regardless, she knows she wants to work at the intersection of health and products and services.

In the near future, though, she is looking forward to graduating from the MIIPS program in December 2025 and getting started on what’s next.