My Day at a Glance
Hometown: New Delhi, India
Education: BSc.(Hons) Electronics, University of Delhi, India; M.A. (Mass Communication), Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.
Before Wharton: Broadcast Reporter for NDTV, Independent film maker, Prime Time News Anchor and Bureau Chief, Mumbai for CNN
After Wharton: Working as an associate in a consulting firm
The first thing I got involved with at Wharton was a volunteer project building a playground at the Wissahickon Charter School during Pre-Term.
Getting involved
The first thing I got involved with at Wharton was a volunteer project building a playground at the Wissahickon Charter School during Pre-Term. Pre-Term captains asked for volunteers to serve as build captains. I didn’t have building experience, but thought it would be great fun. The build captains got there a day before all the other students and helped with the basic infrastructure. The rest of the volunteers joined us the next day. It was a great bonding experience for us all.
Value of volunteering
Simple volunteer projects like this are valuable on so many levels. From the outside, the notion one has of business school is that everyone is in suits, so the project was eye-opening for me. I come from a broadcast journalism background so Wharton dispelled that notion for me very quickly. I was happy to see business students take part in socially relevant action. It’s also encouraging to see people who will one day be CFOs and CEOs get their hands dirty and know that they are willing to work from the ground up.
Starting a film club at Wharton
Prior to coming to Wharton, I spent some time running my own film production company. Since film is something I am very passionate about, I petitioned the WGA to start a film club on campus. One of the reasons why we started the club was because there is a lot of cross-cultural learning in watching films from other countries. Given the huge international student population, we thought that films could be another avenue to get to know where we all come from. Films really speak volumes about people’s culture.
Giving back, adding value
I also thought starting the club would allow me to give back to the school. Increasingly, making videos has become part of larger communication.. I realized that if people were really interested in learning how to make videos professionally, we could set up a small workshop as part of the film club. I saw this as a way that I could to help add value to school. The great thing about Wharton is that if you are passionate about something and you really think it adds to the community, the students here will stand behind you so that you can make it happen.
During one of Professor Siegel’s classes, in less than 15 minutes, he broke down how the whole financial crisis happened, in a way, that someone like me could understand.
A Wharton moment
Even though I had been a news anchor and had business segmants, before school, I really didn’t look at the market. But, during one of Professor Siegel’s macroeconomics classes, I experienced a great Wharton moment. He literally broke down why this housing, CEO, and credit crisis happened. He went step by step on how and when things went wrong. He not only explained the whole financial crisis in less than 15 minutes, but he did so in a way that someone like me, who didn’t have a financial background, could understand it.
Being at Wharton has changed the way I look at news and news headlines. The business dynamics at play behind each headline—I will never read a paper from my old perspective again. Now I wonder what one business is trying to signal to another business through a story. As a news broadcaster, I never thought about the business dynamics behind press statements made by organizations. I took them at face value—until now.
