I didn’t just start my MIT journey 1 month ago when I joined, I started 5 years ago when I started my first job at a technology company. I was fresh into my job, fresh to the corporate world, and fresh to tech, and what I found in my manager was a friend, a teacher, and one of the most intelligent, humble and kind people I had ever met. He did his Master’s at MIT. As young professionals, so much of our personality is shaped by our first job and who we interact with. My manager was this guide to me. For as long as I have known him, I have wanted to be like him. He always talks about how MIT was a transformational experience for him and made him the person that he is today.
MIT to me was not just a brand, but a personal desire to become a more whole person, one of technical bent of mind, curious, inquisitive, yet thinking about ways to make the world better. I also came to MIT to pivot from software into biotechnology. I have been a Type 1 Diabetic for the last 21 years, and a majority of that was spent in India, with the last 9 years in the US. Coming to the US, I saw the disparity in Medtech device availability between the US and countries like India. I searched and searched to figure out the cause for this rift, and a lot of it came down to supply chain issues. This was my reason for applying to and joining the Supply Chain Management program at MIT.
Before joining, some naïve part of me worried that everyone would be brilliant and I would be left behind, but since coming here, I have realized that I have not been left behind; not because my classmates are not brilliant, but because we all have our strengths and do a phenomenal job of complementing each other’s skill sets. The MIT SCM cohort is also one of the most welcoming spaces, both from the students, faculty, and staff. I have never felt this comfortable walking up to a professor or researcher and just chatting about new innovations, and casually discussing world changing solutions over a beer.
I hope to do good in the world, and MIT is going to help me achieve that. To end, I take a breath, and remind myself that I am here, at one of the best universities in the world, and that…I made it.