About Kartik: Kartik Gupta is a first-year Full time MBA candidate from India. Kartik has prior experience in the Aviation industry and has worked in both pricing strategy for an airline, as well as strategy consulting with a boutique consulting firm in India.
2020 was a year of uncertainties. While I was really excited to be starting my MBA, little did I know that certain obstacles would completely change my experience overall.
Background
I do not need to tell you what happened in spring of 2020. The world was upside down and most of us were just passing time and waiting for our regular lives to return. During summer, the Student Affairs team at Anderson was very proactive in their communication about plans for the summer and fall quarters. They were quick to understand and interpret various guidelines issued by both the federal and state governments. They kept good track of the COVID situation and planned for a hybrid MBA model. While we knew that our MBA experience wouldn’t be the same for a few months, we were hopeful that we’d be back to normal by fall. Then in late August, COVID began to come back in LA and that meant LA County decided to restrict all in-person classes. That combined with the U.S. visa policies meant that I was stuck to do my MBA from the other side of the world.
My Experience
Anderson was quick to adopt to the virtual environment. This helped us start our networking journey in early May and, by the summer quarter, we had built strong relationships. Even though the environment was unusual, we felt that the uniqueness of it helped us understand each other better. By the time fall semester started, we were very much into our MBA journey and there was no looking back. Although challenging, I was able to motivate myself to be proactive throughout the process. I started building my schedule in the LA time zone and slowly switched clocks. The students who were in LA were also very supportive and together we were able to build a truly global MBA experience. Not only that, the 2nd year students, Parker and the Student Affairs team worked day and night to ensure that we were able to keep up with the curriculum, as well as drive ourselves through this MBA journey. The various activities and events kept us occupied throughout the day and the months of summer and fall flew by. By the end of it, I was able to connect with over 200 students in my class and build a diverse set of skills and perspectives.
The Takeaway
I won’t lie by saying that a virtual experience was better than in-person. However, it still was way better than what I expected and at the end of the day, the best experience I could have hoped for given the current situation. The challenges that our class faced together got us to think fearlessly, drive change and share success. It also made me understand the importance of building endurance to adapt to changing circumstances. Thanks to the efforts from Anderson, I was able to get to LA last month and I look forward to continuing this journey ahead!
Student Blogger: Kartik Gupta ‘22
Undergrad: Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Pre-MBA: Airlines, Research Consulting
Leadership@Anderson: Director of External Affairs, Management Consulting Association; Director, Admissions Ambassador Corporation; Director of Airlines, Travel and Hospitality Association
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