An affinity for administration
With parents who are both successful dentists, Natalie Fu assumed her studies and career would traverse a similar path. But after running the gauntlet of internships, volunteer work and paid positions, she’s learned to maximize her inherent management skills to improve operations in numerous and varied settings — including healthcare, food and beverage, small businesses and student associations.
An unexpected shift
Fu was a biology major in her freshman year, but an early positive experience with AP Psychology inspired her to enroll in additional psychology classes at UC Irvine. Intrigued by what she learned, she met with academic advisors from both the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Social Sciences a dozen times.
“The people at social sciences were helpful in drafting a concrete plan,” she says. “They really explained the entire process and reassured me about switching to psychology. They said there are so many opportunities that I can still achieve with this major. And I wanted to study something I was passionate about.”
Inspired by those meetings, Fu — a self-described people person — decided to change her major from biology to psychology with a minor in management and public health. Instead of pursuing the clinical path, however, Fu plans to leverage her expertise in psychology to manage and lead organizations.
Learning on the job
Fu’s nuanced career goals are grounded in practical experience. She spent a year working as a host at a country club restaurant, where she first learned about common operational concerns such as pricing, product mix, customer service and the need for timely course correction to meet the objectives of the business.
Feedback was welcomed, not only from other staff but from the customers themselves; of these, only the most meaningful suggestions were identified and executed. Fu observed as management discontinued less-popular menu items to optimize profitability — but some of the adjustments were more creative. “The members really wanted a homier feel,” she recalls. “They wanted the nostalgia of what the club was like in the 90s.” This open-ended suggestion resulted in concrete action: a pasta bar reminiscent of decades past.
Like many businesses, the club’s organizational hierarchy included a robust layer of middle management—with a dedicated manager overseeing the club, events, restaurant operations, and food and beverage — which could contribute to well-informed but often complex decision-making. Looking back, she appreciates that the job gave her access to the many operational complexities faced by back-of-the-house management.
“I thought it would be easy,” she says, “because you just work with people and organize things ... But I gained a lot of clarity. I learned what I could do as a manager. I’ll take that experience and carry it forward.”
Fu’s familiarity with larger, multilayered organizations gave her an appreciation for the lean efficacy of small businesses. She worked the front office at a private dental practice as well as in a music studio, where flat management facilitated effective decision-making. She calls the entrepreneurial environment more “personable and efficient."
“If you wanted something changed,” she says, “it would be changed.”
In the lead: “Standing on Business”
College associations have also benefited from Fu’s intuitive management skills. Although her background is Chinese and Taiwanese, Fu has enjoyed her leadership role in the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA), a large and extremely active on-campus club recommended by a good friend. Brought on as an intern in her first year, she later sat on the board and took on the role of sports chair, where she managed various intramural teams, including basketball, volleyball and flag football.
“That was my first hands-on experience of taking what I’ve learned and putting it into motion,” she says. And thanks to her deep CV, Fu has learned what to emulate — and what to avoid — while handling organizational disputes. “My first go-to is talking with my team captains,” she says, “taking in their concerns, voicing my opinion, and trying to find a middle ground. There’s a lot of compromising.”
Fu acknowledges that leadership is a balancing act, especially when her primary concern is that VSA members walk away with a positive experience. If anything, she felt she needed, at first, to get comfortable with asserting herself.
“Sometimes I would be too passive and just take a step back,” she says. “But over time, I learned that if you’re going to lead a team and you want them to take you seriously, you have to ‘stand on business.’ You can’t let other people dictate what you’re going to do … to an extent, of course.”
She even took her leadership mindset to a Shanghai hospital where she interned last summer, working in an international department with foreign patients. She was fascinated by the value and comprehensiveness of a typical physical exam, which included bloodwork, an H. pylori breath test, CT scans, ultrasounds, dental cleanings, and women’s healthcare. And Fu identified subtle operational gaps even in this high-functioning environment. The department was often quiet during her internship, with the working assumption that international patients return home in the summer. Aware that some expats do remain in-country through the summer, Fu proposed partnerships with major hotel groups and summertime outreach through advertising and discounted checkups.
Paying it forward as a peer advisor
Upon graduation in the spring, Fu intends to apply her management experience to healthcare administration, working for a few years to familiarize herself with the sector before pursuing a master’s degree in public health. But for now, she remains dedicated to her leadership roles at UCI.
Instrumental to Fu’s contributions is a natural tendency to use her own experiences to provide perspectives on other lives. Thinking back on the support she received in her first year, she was motivated to become a peer advisor herself. Estela Magaña, supervisor of the School of Social Sciences peer academic advising program, says that Fu’s “welcoming demeanor, empathy, and patience” puts students immediately at ease. “Natalie has a genuine interest in giving back to others,” Magaña says. “She connects with people on a profound level.”
Although the program features extensive training modules, most of Fu’s learning happened once the quarter began — on the front lines, where she does her best work.
“It was surprising that a lot of people don’t have everything figured out,” she says, “just like I felt during my time at UCI. They wanted insight from what I’ve experienced, and seeing how comfortable they feel after our advising sessions, I think, ‘Wow, I’m passing it forward, you know?
“Someone did it for me, and now I’m helping other people.”
-Lisa Horiuchi for the UC Irvine School of Social Sciences
-pictured: Natalie Fu.