Penn State Global Alumni Spotlight: Pooja Mallipamula

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — “If I do this, will I be pigeonholed into this forever?” That’s the question that many students ask themselves when they choose a degree. In many ways, the college experience is a way to lay out a life path — get an engineering degree, become an engineer; get a business degree, become a CEO. But rarely is the path as simple as it’s made out to be, and sometimes, people end up pursuing areas that are completely outside of their area of study.

Such was the case for Pooja Mallipamula, a 2012 graduate of Penn State's College of Engineering and Bellisario College of Communications. Growing up, her Indian family placed a high value on stability, she said, and she knew she would have to study something that would provide for her financially, even if it might not be what she truly wanted to be doing.

“I did creative stuff in college, but I wasn’t allowed to fully pursue that,” she said. “Coming from a middle-class mentality, it was always stability over chasing dreams.”

Coming to Penn State

Mallipamula grew up in Pennsylvania, and her sister went to Penn State — on visits to her sister , Mallipamula saw the University Park campus in person and became familiar with the University. So when it came time to choose a university, Penn State was the obvious choice; again, her family valued comfort and stability, she explained.

“It just felt like this is what I should be doing,” she said.

Mallipamula came to the University as an engineering major and immediately began pursuing her studies — aggressively. She graduated early from Penn State with two degrees, mostly owing to the fact that she took summer classes and loaded up on credits during the semester.

“My last semester, I took 27 credits,” she said. “My adviser tried to convince me not to, but I was determined. My GPA wasn’t as high as it could have been, but that’s because I overloaded and drowned myself in classes to graduate early.”

Her classes were heavily male-dominated, and most of her friends were men, she recalled. This continued a theme for her: As someone who was born in India, but mostly raised in the United States, she said she had a sense that she didn’t quite belong in any one particular group.

“I’m this weird person where I’m not truly international, but I’m not truly American either. I felt like international students had their own ‘thing’ and I didn’t necessarily fit into that, but I wasn’t ‘American-American,’” she recalled. “But Penn State is a melting pot, so I got to surround myself with people from different cultures and backgrounds.”

While Mallipamula put most of her efforts into engineering, she disliked it at the time, she recalled. She always knew engineering wasn’t her passion, she said, but a few experiences at Penn State really solidified her desire to pursue a more creative field.

First, she took a theater class, which was “something that gave me a chance to vicariously live,’” she said. Then, she attended two concerts during her time as a student that pushed her towards communications and creativity. The first, Maroon 5, she saw in Pittsburgh — and got to meet the band backstage. A week later, she attended a concert on campus — Travie McCoy and B.O.B. — where she had front-row seats.

"At one point in the concert, I held Travie McCoy's hand," she recounted. "Those experiences really made me realize I wasn't meant to be in engineering. I wanted to connect with people."

Pursuing creative dreams

Mallipamula added a journalism degree in addition to her engineering degree and graduated a year early, then moved to New York City and started pursuing creative opportunities.

“That was the deal I made with my mother,” she said. “I did what you wanted, and now I’m going to live life like I want to. My mom was a single mother who always wanted us to have everything we needed in life, and I wanted to honor that, but also honor myself.”

Even though she identifies more as a creative person, looking back, she’s grown to appreciate her mother’s insistence on pursuing her degrees. Even though they didn’t end up being the destination, they’ve aided her on her journey, she said.

“I got a lot of financial freedom from having my degrees,” she said, explaining that her salary, like many who go into the engineering field, was a good one. "I never had to struggle to survive the way that other creatives may have.”

Not only did her degrees afford her financial freedom, they’ve influenced her creatively, as well.

“I tend to analyze a lot of things — even with jokes, I break down structurally what’s working and what isn’t working. Having that engineering brain comes very much in handy,” she said.

“I’m also really passionate about creating content that gets more women into STEM. I’ll write from my own experiences working in the tech industry. Engineering requires creative thinking, too,” she added.

After graduation, Mallipamula had a journey that took her “all over,” she said. She spent time in Indianapolis, New York, Los Angeles, India — then New York again, Los Angeles again, New York again, India again —  and now, London.

“I went to India because my agent told me to try and get something made on Netflix in India to get some credits to my name,” she said. “Then the pandemic happened … and I just ended up staying there.”

Creative projects

Her geographical and creative journeys are similar in that she’s bounced around quite a bit. She started off doing standup comedy, but then quit for seven years; then got into improvisation and writing, and was a semifinalist for "Made in New York Writers Room" training.

She’s currently working on multiple writing projects, including putting together a dramedy show called “Pooja, What Is This Behavior?” — about a recently laid-off Indian American — Pooja — who, after ancestral visions, nosedives into being a dance-meditation instructor while embracing personal growth and sobriety in a pub-filled London while living with eccentric roommates.

“I’m sort of tired of the messy millennial trope,” she said of the project. “I want to flip that and show someone who’s trying to better their life.”

Comedy in the U.K.

Finally, Mallipamula did eventually return to standup, she said.

“I got accepted to the Women in Comedy Festival in Manchester, and they wanted me to do an hour,” she said. “It was almost like pushing myself to do something when I wasn’t ready … I had maybe 10-15 minutes of material and I had to fill an hour-long show about three months later … but I did it, and it went really, really well.”

Her hour-long special, titled “Unfortunately Straight,” deals with the dating experiences of a straight Indian woman, and how colonialism and patriarchy impact those experiences.

Around that time, she said, realized that her day job as head of marketing for a fintech (financial management) startup and her creative pursuits couldn’t coexist. She quit her job, which had started making her work weeknights and weekends, and decided to pursue standup and writing, full-time, in London.

“After I came back from Manchester, I realized I’d started falling in love with London,” she said. “I did the show again at the SoHo Theatre for their Comedy Plus Lab, and I decided that London is where I wanted to stay.” She said she is currently applying for an “artists with potential” visa in hopes that she can stay in the U.K.

Her creative endeavors all flow from a single creative philosophy: Mallipamula said she describes herself as a “conscious comedic creative.”

“My stuff is issue-focused … most of my content has something I’m trying to bring to light, and I use comedy to make it entertaining instead of being preachy,” she said. “I’m passionate about telling diverse stories, not because it’s the thing to do now, but because authentic storytelling can help break down stereotypes, normalize different cultural experiences, and bring people together.”

Flying out of the pigeonhole

Even though her path has taken her away from the degrees she got from Penn State, Mallipamula said she looks back on her time at the University fondly, and uses the lessons she learned through her college education in her everyday life. This is the lesson, she said, she wants to impart on current Penn State students.

“It’s more than degrees, it’s about the skillsets you’re learning and how you can apply them, especially group projects — I hated them in college, but adult jobs really are big group projects,” she said. “You can move into whatever you want to move to. Don’t get too anxious about pigeonholing yourself with your degree. It’s only a pigeonhole if you make it one.”

Mallipamula is interested in connecting with other Penn State alumni in creative fields. She can be reached at poojasomething.com.