There is a particular kind of thrill that comes from learning something for the first time. The moment that a concept clicks in your mind, the world rearranges itself, just slightly, around your new knowledge. I had forgotten what that felt like. MIT reminded me.
It started, as so many origin stories now do, during the pandemic. The buckling of supply chains across the board turned grocery shopping from a routine exercise into a tactical maneuver. Phrases like “bullwhip effect” and “last-mile delivery” found their way into our dinner-table conversations. For most people, it was frustrating. For me, it was fascinating.
I found myself going down rabbit holes—reading about quick-commerce at three in the morning, watching YouTube videos on Amazon operations, figuring out what the heck the Suez Canal was, and why a random ship stuck there was making the world go crazy. Supply chains, I realized, were the backbone of the globalized world, and almost no one realized their importance until it all went wrong.
That curiosity led me to MIT’s MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management. It was rigorous, analytical, and deeply satisfying. Every module peeled back another layer: demand forecasting, network optimization, and inventory theory. I was learning the basics of a complicated giant bit by bit. And I wanted more. So, I went all in—completed the full set of courses, sat for the proctored exams, and earned the MicroMasters credential. Finishing it felt so rewarding that I thought this was something worth building a career around.
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Soon enough, I was ready to put theory into practice. I joined Argon & Co., a global supply chain consulting firm, where the projects I worked on every day impacted real-world supply chains. The learning curve was steep in the best possible way. Early on, every client engagement felt like a masterclass. I was designing distribution networks, optimizing warehouse layouts, and building capacity models from scratch. A few years in, I remember telling my friend, “I don’t think I have gone a single week without learning anything!”
But somewhere along the way, things changed.
Consulting, at its core, is an engine for deliverables. There is always a deck to build, a model to ship, or a client to debrief. I was good at all of it! But gradually, the rhythm of the work became less about discovery and more about production. I was still using what I had learned, but I was no longer learning. The problems began to feel like variations of one another, and the work stopped surprising me.
That realization was more unsettling than it sounds. When you build your career around a subject you love, the moment you stop feeling that love, you start questioning the choice itself. Was supply chain really my thing? Was the curiosity just a phase? Or was I mistaking competence for passion?
I did not have good answers. What I had was a nagging sense that something essential had gone quiet—that the version of me that read about quick-commerce at 3 AM was still in there, somewhere, waiting to be woken up.
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I thought back to the MicroMasters, to the version of myself that could not wait to learn the next thing. If anything could reignite that spark, it would be going back to where it started. I applied for MIT’s Supply Chain Management master’s program and joined the class of 2026.
Then, MIT shook me awake.
I do not mean it in the promotional way university testimonials sometimes sound. I mean it in a deeply personal way that matters: the coursework here makes me want to understand things. Not for a grade, not for a deliverable, but for the sheer satisfaction of the understanding itself.
A class in artificial intelligence does not just teach you neural networks; it makes you question why a particular algorithm converges, and another does not, until the intuition is imprinted in your brain. A competitive strategy class does not just hand you frameworks; it drops you into a case and makes you argue your way through it, defend your reasoning, and rebuild when someone pokes a hole in your logic. A module on network design helps you see the invisible decisions behind every product that has reached you.
My educational experience at MIT goes far beyond academics. The SCM cohort itself is a kind of curriculum. My classmates and close friends are people who have run procurement for multinational corporations, driven multi-million-dollar capital expenditure decisions, and run one of the world’s largest freight-carrying rail network systems. Every conversation in the SCM Lab or over coffee is a chance to see your field through a different lens, and that kind of learning is impossible to replicate in a slide deck.
There is also something to be said for the sheer breadth of exposure. In the span of a single week, I have found myself studying the engineering and politics of the Panama Canal, debating venture capital strategies with classmates, and then returning to a forecasting project to tune model hyperparameters. The intellectual range is not a distraction from supply chain; it is supply chain. This field has always been an intersection of engineering, finance, data science, and human behaviour. MIT reminds you of that daily.
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I think the thing about falling in love with learning is that it is not a permanent state you achieve and keep. It is more like a fire that needs tending. The fuel is curiosity, but curiosity alone is not enough—you also need an environment that challenges you, people who inspire you, and enough intellectual energy to follow a question wherever it leads.
Consulting taught me how to do things. MIT is teaching me how to think about things. Both matter, but I had been running on the first for so long that I had nearly forgotten what the second felt like.
I came here wondering if supply chain was still what I wanted to focus on. I am leaving with the certainty that it always was. I just needed to fall in love with the learning again. With the questions that have no clear answers. With the 3 AM curiosity. With the feeling of a concept clicking into place and the world rearranging, just slightly, around it.
That feeling is back. And I am not letting it go this time.
Sharvil Khot joined MIT’s SCM program after 3.5 years in supply chain consulting at Argon & Co., where he designed logistics networks, optimized inventories, and improved warehouse operations for clients across India, Australia, and the U.S. Known for his strong analytical acumen, he has delivered data-driven strategies that unlocked multimillion-dollar savings and improved service reliability. At MIT, Sharvil is building on this technical foundation by sharpening his skills in procurement, strategy, and advanced analytics. His long-term goal is to leverage these strengths to lead global supply chain transformations that drive both business value and sustainable impact.