Watching movies as a child was a fun escape for Sandhya Datla ’25. She paid attention to the stories, of course, but she also had a strong desire to go behind the screen to find out how movies are really made. She wondered: What skills are required to bring movies to life?
This natural curiosity led her to study audio production and collaborate on projects to discover how to turn creative visions into reality. Along the way, she developed strong directing, cinematography, and screenwriting skills.
“Each experience taught me something great, but it also did something else: It brought me closer to storytelling,” explains Datla. “No matter what path I travel, it always leads me back to telling stories.”
A Passion for Learning Turns into a Calling to Tell Stories
As a lifelong learner, Datla constantly seeks knowledge. To fuel this passion, she has completed many courses, workshops, and certificate programs. And she continues to choose Northwestern for her education for standout reason: She feels free to express herself, learn new skills, experiment with new ideas, and connect with people who are experts in their fields. “I’ve never felt like I could ask a bad question,” Datla explains. “That’s what makes me return every time I want to learn something.”
In a Northwestern brand management certificate program, for example, she learned how to develop brand positioning, character, and purpose. But she also learned how to tell powerful stories. During a Northwestern Data Analytics Bootcamp, she developed valuable programming and visualization skills while also quickly discovering the connection between data analysis and storytelling.
After realizing the vital link between storytelling and every other subject she explored, she decided to embrace a new goal: to tell stories that inspire, entertain, and connect people in meaningful ways. Datla is forging ahead on this journey with an Master of Science in Communication (MSC) and her own professional pursuits.
To manage both worlds, she splits her time between Los Angeles, home to her record label Mira Entertainment, and Chicago, where she’s enrolled in the MSC program full-time.
“Right now, I’m building six original songs about my life experiences,” Datla explains. “They explore a wide range of emotions. I lost my husband in an accident last year, so some songs are about painful experiences, while others are happy memories,” Dalta explains. Her goal is to submit her work for Grammy Award consideration.
At the same time, she’s working on a full-length feature film in India. “It’s happening right now in collaboration with two big production houses based on content I’ve developed. It will come out next year.” In September 2025, Datla is headed to India to oversee her film’s post-production work and begin distributor discussions.
Managing Music, Film, and a Master’s All at Once
“I’m so glad I made time for the MSC program at this point in my life,” says Datla. “I have a good group of distributors and two TV channels interested in buying the content. Everything I’m learning in the MSC program is preparing me for what’s to come.”
In the entertainment industry, networking is everything, she explains. Although Datla enjoys relationship building, she didn’t have a structured framework to follow to achieve the results she wanted.
Professor Noshir Contractor’s Leading and Leveraging Networks course changed that, helping her fill critical gaps. “I learned about how different people in different industries have seen success and what methods they used to connect to people in entertainment.”
Learning to connect with people from different cultures has also been especially applicable to Datla’s career, as she works with her global production team in India. “I understand firsthand the challenges of cross-cultural communication. Sometimes what I say is not what’s perceived. People do things differently, even if they’re working toward the same goal. I got to grow those skills as I worked alongside peers from China, Japan, and Africa, being part of a global team in almost every class. Together, we worked on our communication and working styles, thinking about how we speak and present information so everyone could understand it.”
She also appreciates the program’s focus on communication leadership. “I had leadership skills, but they weren’t tailored to what I want to do,” Datla says. “Now I understand PR, strategic communication, how to negotiate, and how to present difficult messages to distributors in effective ways. This all helps me develop better long-term relationships.”
Part of leadership involves negotiation: finding common ground and reaching mutually beneficial agreements. And Datla says the program has also highlighted the impact of factors like tone, timing, and delivering messages in ethical ways.
“Whatever you’re delivering, you want to do it in a positive way that keeps the doors open for possible reconnection later. Before this class, I’m not sure I would’ve thought about negotiation from that perspective.”
Getting Ready for What Comes Next
With her MSC in hand, Datla says she knows she will feel confident in accomplishing what she’s setting out to do: bring her stories to audiences around the world through music and film.
“I want to be a leader in entertainment and carve a niche for my content and my brand, which is original and truthful. I want to connect people to the truth. To do this, I’ll apply everything I learned in the MSC program.”