Meet the MBA Class of 2023: Charu Goyal, Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)

Charu Goyal

Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business

“Organized, straight forward and empathetic person with big aspirations who leads initiatives and drives them with teamwork.”

Hometown: Bathinda, Punjab

I am a clean freak; love cooking & am very organized. People around me call me Monica from the sitcom FRIENDS because of all these traits.

Undergraduate School and Major: Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, GGSIPU, Delhi- Mechanical & Automation Engineering

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.- Senior Product Development Engineer

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of Carnegie Mellon’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? I want to pursue a career in Operations and Strategy. During the application stage, I shortlisted schools based on this parameter only. Tepper, CMU fulfilled all the requirements in my checklist in this respect. Apart from providing a diverse classroom experience, the tools and methods used to teach at CMU are incomparable.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Carnegie Mellon? I am really looking forward to the Global treks organized at Tepper. I love to travel and these treks provide an opportunity to meet people from diverse backgrounds. Such experiences add and enrich our lives like no other. I am just praying that COVID goes away soon and we are able to participate in such treks.

The Tepper MBA is known for intensive one-on-one coaching and personal development. What area do you hope to strengthen during your two years in business school and why? I guess that area definitely is networking and communication for me. Though I have worked with global partners on various projects, networking still scares me. However, I am no longer worried about this aspect after talking to my MCC coach, current students and alumni.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: The most special moment of my career was when I was appreciated by the leadership team of the company I worked with and was called from a crowd of almost a thousand engineers during an internal launch of a vehicle I worked on. Acknowledgement for my work from the leadership really boosted my confidence and I led different projects after that.

How did COVID-19 change your perspective on your career and your life in general? My family and I are COVID survivors. That phase made me more empathetic towards the community. I have always had great aspirations for my career. Now more than ever, I want to direct my efforts and aspirations towards betterment of the community through my professional and personal acts.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point and what do you hope to do after graduation? In the last five years of working at an automotive firm in India, I managed to move my role and projects from a core engineering nature to a strategic one. I was already working with global partners from the US, Italy, and South Korea. To strengthen my profile and to move up to a leadership role in a global setup, I decided to pursue an MBA now.

Operations and strategy have been my forte, so after graduation I plan to work in the operations and strategy division of the global firms such as Amazon and Google.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? USC Marshall, Michigan Ross, ISB

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Carnegie Mellon’s MBA program? Admission at Tepper, CMU is a very prestigious thing. Tepper accepts applicants from diverse profiles, ethnicities, and regions. Applicants should just be genuine in their application and interview. The experiences, both professional and personal, should be converted to powerful STAR stories and should be conveyed with confidence and passion during the interview. I guess that is what worked for me in securing an admit at Tepper, CMU.

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