Life as a Student At Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management

Radhika Karve
Designation: MBA Student (May 2019)

1. Being able to follow your path to the right career is crucial. Who guided you? What motivated you to choose this academic/career path?

My dad was my biggest motivation for guiding me to study abroad. I wanted to transition to corporate finance from consulting at KPMG since I wanted to be internally associated with the organization. This motivated me to pursue an MBA.

2. Can you share with us what are you looking to pursue as a career in the future?

I want to build a career in Corporate Finance

3. Describe the most interesting lesson/experience at college that you have had till date.

I was selected to participate in a social enterprise course through which I had a chance to visit Colombia and work on a sustainable project with coffee farmers. That experience taught me the level of effort that goes into making a cup of coffee.

4. What are the special features/highlights of your college experience so far?

Owen is a small tight-knit community and due to the small class size, all the students get to know each other quickly and form meaningful connections. The small class size also helps in learning about each other’s diverse perspectives in depth.

5. What advice would you like to give to other students/professionals who wish to boost their academic or career goals?

Analyze the root cause of why you are doing what you are doing and if you want to change it, actually weigh the pros and cons of taking a different path. This way even if things do not go your way, later on, you would not regret it since you thought about everything at that moment in time and took the decision. Further, once you have made the decision stick with it even if it gets hard. Once you achieve your destination this entire journey would have been worth the wait!

6. Is there is one thing you’d like to change in your college, what would it be?

Nothing comes to mind!

7.What’s a typical day in a B-school like?

B-schools are from Monday to Thursday. At Owen, we have a mod system (a semester broken down into two parts) and in this way, you can select electives from Mod-2 itself and build a course structure that will provide you with relevant skills. We have closing bells on Thursday which help us network within our class and that is what makes Owen a tight-knit community.

8. Program Highlights:

The most interesting class for me has been Prof. Ranga’s Managerial and Organizational Effectiveness. That class teaches us how to manage the organization and how to manage your co-workers which is a very important skill in today’s corporate environment. This class was one of the most interesting and challenging classes I attended at Owen.

9.Your final word of advice (in one line):
Being an international student myself, I would say this: It is going to be hard but do not give up!