Tanvi Seth       

Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business             

“An old soul always aspiring to learn, mentor and design.”

Hometown: Fremont, California

Fun Fact About Yourself: During quarantine, my cousin started a learning community for people of all ages and backgrounds to master languages like Chinese, French, and Spanish. With the number of students rapidly increasing and with a virtual global learning environment growing, there was a need to create an online learning platform. Through my knowledge of UX/UI practices, I was able to design a cohesive and engaging website. To this day, the student community continues to grow!

Undergraduate School and Major: Drexel University, Lebow School of Business with a major in Marketing, Analytics and Management Information Systems

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Johnson and Johnson, Technology Solutions Lead

What excites you most about studying in Washington, DC? So much! I’ve always wanted to live in a city, let alone a highly progressive city, add that and Georgetown’s neighborhood charm – I am looking forward to the next two years!

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of Georgetown McDonough’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you?  While looking through business schools, I hoped for a program whose mission statement closely aligned with my values. Specifically, I believed that an influential and imperishable leader is not based on title or role, but on his or her ability to influence the surrounding community in a small yet impactful way. As a leader, I want to create an engaging and secure environment for women, specifically within the technology industry. Georgetown’s Cura Personalis, or care for a person as a whole, can be felt throughout various program initiatives, and are all equally important in shaping my success to be such a leader. Additionally, I was looking for a program with class sizes that are small and inclusive and where I knew all my peers by name. While I may not yet know all my fellow 250 peers by name, I already know the 60 peers in my cohort in just a month.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Georgetown McDonough? There are many activities and clubs that I am excited to be involved in during my next two years at McDonough. While I look forward to the Mentorship Program and Graduate Women in Business, I am looking forward most to the Georgetown Consulting Club. I came to Georgetown with limited knowledge of what it takes to succeed with a consulting career and now look forward to learning about the new yet exciting challenges that come with it!

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Mentorship has always played a significant role in my personal and professional career. Within my time at Johnson and Johnson, I, along with a handful of others, created a program to support interns and co-ops as they onboarded to the technology sector of a corporate company. Among the many initiatives, the development of a mentorship program was by far the most rewarding. We built 50+ working relationships with interns/co-ops and their mentors who were current or recent alumni of the technology leadership development program. Creating a unified working relationship not only enhanced the professional experiences for both the interns and co-ops, but was also a huge motivator in their decision to apply full time. Most surprising was the positive feedback we received from women who found that such a mentorship program acted as an area of support and comfort when it came to being part of a male-dominated industry.

How did COVID-19 change your perspective on your career and your life in general? As individuals, we often strive to have the next title, position, or dollar value. While there is no wrong in pursuing such, COVID-19 provided me with a much-needed pause in my career to ask myself whether what I was doing day-to-day was contributing to society in a way that I always hoped. Then, putting pen to paper, I wrote down three values that I am most passionate about: mentorship, design, and continuous growth. I have since made a self-promise to build a career and future based off these values.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point and what do you hope to do after graduation? Even during my years in undergrad, the decision to attend MBA school has always been an easy one. Personally, I strive for opportunities with high learning curves where I can get out of my comfort zone and take on something new. Additionally, I believe that the strongest candidate is “good at many things, rather than great at just one thing.” Going through Johnson & Johnson’s Technology Leadership Development Program, I had the opportunity to venture into various tech roles, thereby allowing me to build a wide set of technical skillsets and build upon my professional network. As the development program ended, I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in a similar learning environment, thus inspiring me to continue a career in consulting. Specifically, I want to be a design product strategist while simultaneously developing or enhancing mentorship programs. To get to the next stop on my career journey, I knew that attaining an MBA would provide me with a foundational understanding of the various components of the business, provide me with a lifetime network and prepare me for a successful career in consulting.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? Vanderbilt, University of Washington

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Georgetown McDonough’s MBA program? Find what part of your story makes you unique and highlight that, don’t try to change your story to what you think the admissions office would like to hear. In other words, be true to who you are. What you may find to be an unoriginal or mundane story, others find to be colorful and full of potential.

DON’T MISS: MEET GEORGETOWN MCDONOUGH’S MBA CLASS OF 2023