Guide to Online Education > Online Education In-Depth > Meet Real Online Students > Cynthia, Certificate in Regulatory Affairs
She had always had a strong interest in science. In high school she took Honors Chemistry and dreamed of donning a white coat and working in a lab.
Name: Cindy Katsempris
Age: 28
Marital Status: Married
Advice to Online Students: Stay on top of your workload
School: Lehigh University
Target: Regulatory Affairs Certificate, December 2006
After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Rutgers University, her hard work paid off. Cindy landed a job with a pharmaceutical company.
For two years she quietly developed and optimized new methods for testing pills. Testing a drug's potency and identifying impurities were new and challenging. At first.
But eventually even liquid chromatography lost its luster. She had had her fill of analytical development. She sought a new challenge.
"I thought I'd find it exciting," she says of her lab work. "It was routine. And kind of boring."
She expressed an interest in business development and marketing. She was promoted from the recesses of the lab up into a regulatory position--a higher visibility area.
It was not until she decided to move on, that she realized she needed more education.
"It was pretty difficult. I was told that a lot of people applying for the position had a master's degree or a certificate in regulatory affairs," she recalls. "I found it difficult to compete."
When she was not accepted into the master's program at her alma mater, it was a challenge to bounce back and apply to other schools.
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