18 | Studying Business at Emory and Making the Best of a College Community - with Raghav Gupta

Raghav Gupta | Business Major, Goizueta Business School

Graduating from Modern Barakhamba School in Delhi, Raghav started his journey as a Business major at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Here, he has had opportunities that have allowed him to discover his talents as an entrepreneur who is able to identify the best way to help people around him make the best of their abilities.

Raghav tells Arjun about his experience so far at Emory and the advantages that being in a Business school like Goizueta can provide, especially in terms of personal connections.

Episode Takeaways

His Transition to Emory

The best part about the first two years at Emory is that you can take liberal arts courses along with the Business courses. This helped his friends who were not sure about choosing Business as a major, giving them the flexibility to try different subjects. Though he was sure about Business, he had the opportunity to explore Philosophy and Political Science which were his other interests. He enjoyed his class on "Fake News" and also improved his writing through his journalism course.

His Experience at the Goizueta Business School

The faculty at Goizueta is outstanding since cost of living is low in Atlanta and it attracts the best. He had the opportunity to TA for Dr. Jagdish Sheth, a well known Marketing Guru who just received the Padma Shree. The class sizes at Goizueta are small and he enjoyed the case study approach they emphasised. He has taken part in several business competitions and even partnered with students at Georgia Tech to take part in hackathons. The community is diverse in terms of cultural backgrounds. The Indians, Chinese and Caucasians tend to build their sub-groups but intellectually everyone mingles.

Extracurricular Life on Campus

He is president of a social entrepreneurship group. They partner with refugee groups to help set up their businesses. He has also worked with some Indian ladies to help them set up a beauty salon on campus. He is VP of 180 Consulting - they advice clients and have many mentors from the industry since the alumni is close knit. Emory has a lot of support from the Greater Atlanta business community.

His 3 Strengths: Hustle, Humble, Vision

His Inspirations

He was inspired by the autobiography of Qimat Rai Gupta who started off as a small time trader to become the leader of the biggest electrical conglomerate in the world -  Havells. He also admires Ratan Tata for his humility.

Education in Times of COVID

He feels that pre-COVID, students wasted time getting to class and in between classes. But now with online courses he feels everything will come down to being extremely productive. Students can use the saved time on internships and projects. Emory will probably not have in-person classes in the fall. Students are contemplating on whether they will be allowed to take a gap year or semester. Things will become very competitive next year if students are allowed to take a gap year this year.

His Education Startup

His father is a pioneer in online education. Raghav realized that there is a gap between college education and job-ready skills. He also noticed that Java Fullstack is a skill that is in high demand in any job. Anything online has to be based on a framework running behind it and that requires knowledge of Java. Colleges don't teach this as it is a very dynamic field - there are new plugins to become familiar with every few months and this is very specific to each industry. He is planning to hire people on his payroll and upscale them with these skills and then deploy them to his clients' companies. These students will require 600 hours of training and will need to come in with basic Java skills. Their jobs will be guaranteed upon finishing the course. They will get 7 lakh starting salary minimum.

Advice to Students Who Applied this Year

Everything is uncertain. Even getting a grade or a class is uncertain. Just be positive even if college is delayed by a year.

Summarize Your College Experience in 3 Words: Learning, Fun, Learning