UNH Student Turns Down Job at Snapchat for Harvard

Afraz Siddiqui was one of hundreds of graduates of the Class of 2017, earning a degree in business management and a minor in entrepreneurship. As many students across the country struggle to find a job after graduation, Siddiqui told one of the most popular social media companies in the world: no. Siddiqui, 20, turned down a job offer from Snapchat to attend Harvard University for his graduate degree.

Siddiqui admitted that he never saw himself working in social media. His goal is to become a cardiologist to bring his love of helping people and his love of technology together. He explained that Harvard was the only place he could go to gain that educational opportunity prior to attending medical school.

“Education is the love of my life,” he said. “The simple answer to why I said no to Snapchat is that in my personal set of values, helping people and impacting the world exceeds a social-, profit-, and corporate-based networking job.”

In his time at the University, he developed an app called QuickQast, designed with the intent to convey
news from a nonbiased viewpoint.

“The idea was to offer the ability for everyone to cast current events quickly from their perspectives. It is ignorant to think everything could be truly neutral because human nature is to lean towards one side or another,” said Siddiqui. “The hope was that with many points, the viewer can have the best-rounded presentation.”

It was this app that lead him and a friend to take a semester off during his sophomore year to travel across the country, which he described as the craziest thing he’s ever done. They left, not knowing when or if they would return, to promote their new app and see where it could take them. He described the decision to make the trip as simple, explaining that, “we knew we had to be in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.” His parents were supportive, and he made a promise to them to finish school, which he would do only a semester behind.

Siddiqui is leaving the University having his own start-up business, Siddiqui Enterprise, which was officially established in January. He explained that he wanted one company to bring his various projects to fruition, which focus on the areas of global education, healthcare, technology, and philanthropy. His goal with the company is to create healthier lives for less fortunate people.

When asked where he saw himself in ten years he immediately knew: finishing his fellowship as an Invasive Cardiologist. He also expressed that he would continue to grow Siddiqui Enterprise to develop solutions in healthcare through technology. While he explained that he did not always want to be a cardiologist, or even a doctor, he knew he always wanted to help people, and his experiences shaped his goals from there.

“After deciding on becoming a doctor I fell in love with cardiology for a number of reasons. Not only is the heart such a vital organ,” he said, “it has so many cool complexities. It has an electric current, which coincides with my passion for technology. Also, it is the only organ that reacts as a person does.”