55 | Payal talks about her journey as an entrepreneur working at Linkedin

Payal Lal | Linkedin Learning & Talent

After dropping out of law school, Payal took a gap year to start her own company. Soon after, she majored in Psychology and Computer Science and became part of Yale-NUS College's first graduating class. Although the program was small, it was extremely personal focused and enabled her to develop a new way of thinking.

Currently, Payal is working with a team at Linkedin to create equal opportunity for every member in the workforce. She specifically works with potential Linkedin Learning or Talent Solutions clients who are used to upskilling employees and finding new talent. Her strong entrepreneurial interest is evident from the three companies she has founded as well as her time working in a higher learning tech start up. Her previous experiences have provided her with the necessary skills to be successful at what she does. 

54 | Yash talks about developing his entrepreneurial skills at UMich

Yash Poddar | LSA Recruitment Assistant

Originally from Kathmandu, Yash is currently attending the University of Michigan Ann Arbor and plans to double major in Economics and Computer Science with a concentration in Business. Initially, he was apprehensive about a large public university but he has found that through the course structure and advisors, the university still excels at focusing and giving attention to individual students.

Although he is in his first years, Yash has been sure of all his interests and priorities. As he talked about his courses, he emphasizes a need to take art and graphic design courses for anyone who wants to become an entrepreneur so that they can be better prepared ahead. In the future, Yash plans to diversify and take more computer science and business classes while still solidifying his interest in entrepreneurship and athletic activities. 

53 | Lavanya explains how she navigated the academic environment at SMU

Lavanya Jindal | Data Analytics Intern, Mantheos 

Lavanya is currently pursuing a double major in Economics and Data Science & Analytics from Singapore Management University. She recalls the big change in her life as she moved to a new country and how the freshman programs at SMU allowed her to meet diverse groups of people and ease her into her new undergraduate life. 

To supplement all her academic coursework, she interned at Absolute Data which solidified her interest in data analytics. She was able to create a R Shiny app that helped her colleagues visualize the trends in the hospitality sector. Ultimately, Lavanya has also been able to participate in various co-curricular activity clubs at SMU to not only hone her academic skills but also gain a variety of vital soft skills that she would need in the future. 

52 | Hrishi talks about his journey and the role of tech in society

Hrishi Olickel | CTO at Greywing

Hrishi completed high school at the Anglo Chinese School in Singapore and graduated in computer science from Yale-NUS, the newly built campus of the National University of Singapore. As part of the first few graduating batches from this campus, he was fortunate to be part of the budget allocation early on. The access to good resources along with the required additional courses in liberal arts allowed for his holistic development.

Currently, Hrishi works as the Chief Technology Officer for Greywing which specializes in risk assessment and analysis related to maritime vessels. He works to aggregate data at large scales and run algorithms on it to find ways for efficient movement. During these times, he assisted in redirecting resources to help deal with the issues caused by the pandemic. 

51 | Ruhani describes her path as a Cornell and MIT graduate

Ruhani Arya | Investment Banking Associate at Bank of America

Ruhani moved from Chandigarh to Ithaca alone to get her chemical engineering degree and a business minor from Cornell University. She recalls how her professors, group of friends, and family helped her through the rigorous academic environment at Cornell. All her undergraduate experiences allowed her to explore her interests and go into the business consulting space with a focus on engineering. 

For some years, she worked at Arconic not only as a consultant but also in the growth and market strategy team. She decided to get a MBA to further her interest in finance and accounting. After completing her courses and internship, she decided to focus on investment banking. Now after completing her MBA from the coveted MIT Sloan School of Management, she is going on to work in the investment banking sphere at the Bank of America.

50 | Vedika talks about her focus on social justice and theatre

Vedika Haralalka | Professional Actor

Vedika moved from an urban bustling environment to a small town in Iowa where she graduated with a degree in Economics and a concentration in Global Development Studies from Grinnell College. This quiet small liberal arts program with rigorous academic classes allowed her to explore a lot of her interests. 

Throughout her undergraduate journey she was keen to work in the social impact space. Not only did she gain experience as social coordinator for the international student organization but also worked as an elected senator in her university student government. However, during all this she also ensured to explore the creative industry through her renewed interest in film, theatre and writing. Ultimately, her college accomplishments ranged from interning at Vogue Conde Nast to working for Save the Children.

49 | Nirvik discusses his college years as a Comp Sci student at Stanford

Nirvik Baruah | Stanford University Student

Nirvik finished high school in Singapore where he was able to complete as many college prerequisites as he could and participated in rigorous extra curricular activities related to his interest in computer science. He is currently completing his double degree in Computer Science and Classical Languages from Stanford University. His high school experiences allowed him to get placed into advanced sequence classes freshman year.

Continuing on, he was also able to work as a teaching assistant for beginner comp sci classes. He is currently working as a researcher for TockOS. Additionally, he is also a research assistant for the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign where he is creating an advanced care planning platform for the Stanford Hospital system. He hopes to continue on to academia in the future. 

48 | Saurabh talks about his career and the future of Biotechnology

Saurabh Dargar | Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Pfizer

Saurabh graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute after completing a double degree in Business Management and Biomedical Engineering. Although he initially started as a mechanical engineer, he moved to biomedical engineering to have an impact on society. He used his experience as an undergraduate researcher at a renowned surgical robotics lab to progress on to complete his doctoral research project in the same field. Eventually, he moved away from pure sciences and into the interdisciplinary space of science and business.

He worked for several years in the management consultancy field until he transitioned on to his current role at Pfizer. Saurabh also gives advice about different subspecialties and career tracks in biotech and emphasizes the importance of having a solid fundamental education. Ultimately, he reflects on the future of biotech and its role in society. 

47 | Prateek’s journey from community college to working in a family business

Prateek Verma | DOP at Sri Sai Amrit Hotels LLC

 

Prateek started on a predetermined path to be around his family in Houston. Initially, he attended Austin Community College for a few semesters and maintained a good GPA but transferred to Texas A&M University and majored in Economics after. He fulfilled his general electives at Austin Community college taking advantage of the cheaper and smaller classes. Ultimately after completing his degree he joined the family hospitality business.

He has now transitioned into being the Director of Operations and is in-charge of heading a chain of franchise hotels. He works closely with General Managers to supervise daily operations for all the active hotels. He fondly recalls how he started his journey at the bottom as a fresh graduate and worked his way to the top through training, learning, networking and hard work.

46 | Aneesh graduated with a triple degree and now works for Pega

Aneesh Borah | Designer at Pega systems 

Aneesh progressed from DPS R.K. Puram to Furman University, a liberal arts college and graduated with three separate majors; IT, Studio Art and Design and Asian Studies, which helped him step out of the traditional design process and approach problem-solving in a different way. He recalls his journey where he switched to IT from Computer Science and completed a study abroad in Japan as well.

After graduating, Aneesh worked in print design at Penguin Random House on well known brands like Marvel and Disney. He is currently working at Pega in Boston where he is a UX/UI graphic designer as part of a team working towards Pega academy. In the future, he hopes to work as an independent designer without having concerns for immigration policies and plans to teach design through his videos and share his experiences with a larger crowd.

45 | Ishaan switched to Electrical and CS Major from Industrial Engineering

Ishaan Thakur | Graduate Research Assistant at Cornell University

Ishaan started his undergraduate studies in Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois, which involves topics such as Structure Designing, Engineering Drawing. However, he wasn’t interested in these subjects so he decided to major in  Electrical and CS engineering instead. He  transferred to Cornell University to pursue these interests.

At Cornell , Ishaan took part in various extracurricular activities and clubs. He was a part of Robotics club and made a project for the visually impaired by designing a cap which detects surrounding objects and helps people  cross the road. Cornell University also gave him the opportunity to reach out to professors and work on more projects of his interest.

44 | Naima expands her extracurricular bandwidth at York University

Naima Sood | Pursuing Sociology Major and Communication Minor

Naima is pursuing Sociology from Glendon Campus of York University, Canada. The main advantage of having two campuses, Glendon College and Keele College,  is that students can choose any course or subject offered on either campus. . It provided her with the flexibility to change majors and pick up minors at any of the campuses. The transit in between the campuses is also well thought and regulated.

There are many volunteering opportunities at different clubs and research opportunities with Professors. At York, Naima felt encouraged to get involved in various extracurricular activities. Naima has also been part of the International Relations Student Association at York University.

43 | Dhrupad has an optimistic life approach and keeps working hard

Dhrupad Bhardwaj | Associate at PDT Partners

Dhrupad graduated with a Computer Science degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Initially he chose Mechanical Engineering, as it was a subject that fascinated him. He used to dislike Computer Science in highschool as the learning was all theoretical, without any practical application. However in College, he got acquainted with programming languages and solving problems using logical abilities. His CS Professor inspired him to switch to CS.

Due to the flexibility in University, Dhrupad was able to make this change in majors and was also able to study Computational Biology. What really helps him thrive in this field is knowing that Maths can help solve even the most minuscule problems.

42 | After struggling during the lockdown Yashodhara finally found positivity in her current job

Yashodhara Kundra | Advisor and Outreach Manager at The CollegeSource

Yashodhara recently graduated cum laude from Beloit College with a double major in Psychology and Creative Writing. She had decided to do a Masters in Clinical Psychology and had received acceptances from many Universities. However she had to pivot her plans due to Covid. She is currently an Advisor and Outreach Manager at the CollegeSource, where she works to strengthen communication, increase engagement, and mentor high school students through their college application process.

Yashodhara elucidates on the initial struggles she faced at college. Being terrified of Math, she chose Psychology. She mentions the advantages of a small liberal arts school such as the flexibility of choosing various subjects to support your majors. She describes the impact of her human biology course in order to understand clinical psychology through a different lens. She is keen on pursuing a PHD in clinical psychology in the future.

41 | Srijan realized his passion for CS after learning about hardware and embedded systems

Srijan Sood | Artificial Intelligence Researcher at J.P. Morgan

Srijan originally pursued Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. During his first internship, he realized that he was more interested in hardware and embedded systems. To get a break from Electrical subjects, Srijan wanted to learn more about CS and so changed Majors. He learnt new subjects from his seniors and also used his experience to guide junior students.

Srijan’s curiosity about Artificial Intelligence grew more after his Machine Learning internship where he  worked as a Data Scientist for a startup to implement a project from start to finish. Later he started research at Georgia Tech in Reinforcement Learning.

40 | Bikramjit studied ML and AI at UC Berkeley | Working at Microsoft as Software Engineer

Bikramjit Kukreja | SWE at Microsoft Azure | EECS at UC Berkeley

Bikramjit pivoted to Computer Science at UC Berkeley. He enjoyed the Introduction to Machine Learning Course because of the unique approach of the Professor. He mentions that Probability was the difficult course he took. A few non STEM courses were also mentioned which helped Bikramjit to know more about India’s Culture.

Bikramjit explains his key responsibilities as a software engineer in Microsoft. He reflects back on how the college has helped him shape his career. Also, he talks about his internship at Rakuten and different responsibilities there.

39 | Simran loves working with children | Exploring the world through the lens of psychology

Simran Arora | Worked with children in India, Indonesia, Denmark and the US. Fighting for equitable, accessible, holistic education

Simran started her journey from CBSE school in India, moved to America to pursue her Bachelors in Psychology majors, taught students in Denmark, Indonesia and now working with Non Profit Organizations in India. Her enthusiasm towards working with children from all over the world can easily be gauged through her podcast.

Simran explains different phases of her life with a lot of enthusiasm. She discloses how she overcame some of the obstacles at college. CMC being a small liberal arts college, gave her more attention where she could form close bonds with professors, faculties and friends.

38 | Dhruv makes his way while pursuing double Majors in Economics and Data Science at UCB

Dhruv K. | ASUC (Student Gov) Senator at UC Berkeley | Data science, Economics & Theater

Dhruv’s passion for working at the intersection of Economics and technology met at UCB. While exploring different opportunities and his motivation of putting himself into uncomfortable positions, Dhruv has taken two majors in Economics and Data Science. His higher aim is to complete his degree in 3.5 years.

Being elected as senator of the student government body club at UCB, Dhruv got acquainted with the flavor of Leadership. He mentions how he got evolved by reflecting back at incidents and trying to get better each time. He wants to create an impact at the community by helping them and enjoys his role.

37 | From Political Science, International Relations to initiating a startup and now working in Education technology, meet Dhwaanii

Dhwaanii Arora | Associate, Plaksha University | Reimagining tech ed | Tech & foreign policy

Dhwaanii shares her journey from Ashoka University to working in a University. An enthusiastic approach towards shaping her own life, she has explored every possible opportunity from taking up Political science to initiating her own start-up, working in International Relations and now managing and curating the modern learning process for young technological minds.

Dhwaanii explains the course at Plaksha. She reflects back on how she entered this profile. She acknowledges the dynamic course her responsibilities have taken at work. Listen to her to know more about her future aims and her driving spirit.

36 | Flexible course schedule at RICE curated Guntas to switch gears from Engineering to Economics

Guntas Singh | Senior Associate at HarbourVest Partners

Guntas started his journey pursuing electrical engineering at RICE University. During his internship, he realized that his interests lie in Economics and he didn’t really need the engineering degree. Due to flexibility at RICE, he was able to pursue Economics later.

Guntas enjoys his work regarding private and public equity at an investment bank, HarbourVest Partners. He considers the covid era as a perfect time to make ourselves resilient and self sufficient in life.