When I Grow Up

20-something’s career thoughts inspired by Love it or List it

When I was 6 I was anti-cartoons. You could not sit me down to watch anything on Nickelodeon. I would immediately dial channel 27, W-network, where I’d sit and watch Love it or List It.

I was always on team Love it (team Hilary), aka, renovating houses. Nothing was more magical than seeing a team of construction workers abolish asbestos and turn a 3 bedroom home into a 5 bedroom one.

As I’ve grown older I’ve moved further and further away from conventional career paths (sorry dad! I know you want a Dr. Grandić!). It brings me comfort to think of the little girl who was glued to reality TV on property renovation.

To some extent, the root of my fascination has not changed. I still love thinking about transformation. For a few years I explored biotech, public health and e-commerce, and among all of those deep-dives, I was always on team Love It: how can we improve the opportunities right in front of us?

In Cellular Agriculture I became interested in Fetal Bovine Serum, a high-burden material that, if renovated, could enable cultured meat production at a more economically viable rate. When I was working in Maternal Mortality, misoprostol caught my eye for it was an effective, low-cost intervention that had the potential to save thousands of lives each year… it just needed some implementation renovation.