Waldron Career Conversation with JJ Guajardo '97 ft. Ashley Guo '26
In this special student-hosted episode of the “Weinberg in the World” podcast, student host Ashley Guo interviews JJ, a 1997 Northwestern graduate in psychology who now works at Microsoft. JJ shares his journey from initially pursuing a pre-med path to discovering his passion for psychology through an Intro to Psych class with Professor David Uttal. He discusses his struggles with organic chemistry and how psychology felt more natural to him. JJ also talks about his diverse coursework, including Russian and Eastern literature, history, and art classes, which enriched his undergraduate experience and allowed him to explore various interests. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjguajardo/ Transcript: Ashley: Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with JJ who graduated from Northwestern in 1997 with a major in psychology. He is currently at Microsoft. Thank you so much for being here with us today. JJ: Well, I'm happy to be here. Thanks. Ashley: We're excited to hear that about your work at Microsoft. Before we do that, we'd love to hear more about your time at Northwestern and what drew you to study psychology initially. JJ: Yeah, good question. I kind of have a funny journey through Northwestern, although probably not super atypical given what I've heard. When I got to Northwestern as a bright-eyed freshman, I was pre-med. I was going to be a medical doctor. That was my path, so I was very excited about going that way. I was trying to figure out what major that I would want to take on it because I didn't think I wanted to do a straight biology major, physics, or something like that, so I was just playing around a little bit. One of my friends, upperclassmen, suggested... He was pre-med, and he was taking psychology classes. He's like, "It's actually a pretty cool major for pre-meds." That's interesting. So I took an Intro to Psych class with David Uttal, and I loved it. I was fascinated by the subject matter. It was one of those moments in time when you're like, "I'm actually kind of okay at this." I was definitely struggling in the pre-med classes, especially when I got to organic chemistry, which absolutely crushed me. I just couldn't quite grasp that kind of subject matter. Whereas, the psychology classes I was taking, between Intro, I took a developmental psychology class with David Uttal as well, and then other ones, it just sort of clicked. It just worked well, and it felt like I didn't have to try super hard. It sounds weird, but I didn't have to try super hard to do well. That's not because it's easy. It's just because it was kind of coming easy to me, which is weird. So I thought that was a good sign. As I continued to struggle in organic chemistry and continued to really fall in love with the subject matter in the psychology courses I was taking, it just felt like a natural thing to stop doing the pre-med track and pursue psychology from there. Then, yeah, I just jumped in head first and took a bunch of different courses. Obviously majored in it. I worked in a lab with Dr. Uttal for a couple years doing hands-on research with the kiddos in the lab in developmental psychology. Yes, that's how I got into it, and was very, very happy to do so. Ashley: Wow, that's amazing to hear. I also took Intro to Psych and really loved the class because I'm a cognitive science major, so that resonates a lot. JJ: That's awesome. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It just felt natural, and it just worked. Ashley: Is there any other classes that you took or extracurriculars that you felt like gave you even more chance to explore psychology? JJ: Oh, interesting. It was funny. I actually took a bunch of, this is kind of weird, Russian, Eastern lit classes- Ashley: Cool. JJ: ... and history, sort of random because one of my friends was taking one, and I'm like, "Yeah, that sounds like fun." I had a couple different professors, I can't remember the one's name, but they were just absolutely fascinating. It's one of those kind o
