Ananya_balasubramanya

CSE-Econ student, PLEME program (Brown University) at Brown University (PLEME program)

ananya_balasubramanya@brown.eduNear Philadelphia, PA (home) / Brown University, Providence, RI

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Summary

Past

- Wanted to be a doctor as a kid, with a brief ~3-year detour wanting to be a lawyer
- Did DECA in high school and loved her high school Econ class, which led her to apply to Brown as Econ-focused
- Joined GRC (Brown's consulting club) freshman year almost by accident, rose through leadership, and now sells/sources projects for the club with companies and nonprofits
- Was also in an investment group at Brown, which led her to recruit for finance; turned down finance offers after realizing 'it really isn't for me'
- Chose CS as an Econ pairing because PLEME's flexibility let her drop bio requirements, and she 'always really liked math' but was 'too chicken to do pure math'
- Shadowed a doctor (like her mother) who complained about the long hours but was clearly devoting her whole life to helping people -- this cemented her love of medicine
- Loved rounding and seeing patient treatment progress firsthand, e.g. a post-op patient with kidney failure whom residents expected to die but who recovered
- Says she 'really likes working with my hands' -- sewed in middle/high school, still has a sewing machine, wants to start embroidery again, and loved being in the OR because 'surgical robots are so dope'
- Comes from a family of physicians (mom is a radiologist, dad is a cardiothoracic surgeon, uncle also a physician) but is 'not really tight' with her dad
- Her mother actively discouraged her from medicine and even told her not to bother applying to Brown/PLEME because she 'wasn't going to get in'
- Finished a cardiac sarcoidosis paper about a month before this conversation, work adjacent to (but not officially part of) the Selke lab
- Classmate/former TA Justin Kim left PLEME for startups and later returned to med school; she interned at his cofounder's company

Present

- Feels 'chugged and locked in' since arriving at Brown, having finished all her classes early and gotten approval to graduate a semester early, which will save a semester of tuition
- Spending summer 2026 doing flexible, remote computational outcomes research near Philadelphia (Jefferson) rather than a traditional internship, calling it a 'calm' summer
- Has not done a traditional software-engineering internship and admits she hasn't recruited for SWE roles before, feeling behind on that front
- Comfortable being 'incognito' as a PLEME -- never disclosed the program to McKinsey during recruiting, and felt isolated from non-PLEME peers during college since most people just knew her as 'another CS' student
- Not committed to staying in clinical practice forever; is drawn toward the business/administrative side of medicine, and sees her consulting internship as a stepping stone there
- Actively ruled out radiology for herself despite her mom's field, because she 'cannot pinpoint where the field is going' with AI, a view her mother reportedly shares
- Wants to use her upcoming gap semester (before med school) to get a growth-heavy technical/engineering experience so she isn't 'a one-trick pony,' ideally at a fast-growing company or startup rather than a large firm

Future

Education

Brown University — PLEME (8-year liberal medical education) program, Computer Science - Economics (CSE-Econ)

Class of 2028, graduating a semester early (December 2027)

Interviews (1)

Interview — 2026-08-10Granola

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Details

Added2026-08-10

Updated2026-08-10

Profile extracted2026-08-21