THE UPLIFTING

‘Dream Big, Be Resilient’: How This Blind MBA Student From India Made It To Columbia Business School

Rajeev Annapragada, who lost 95% of his eyesight at age 12, dreamed of attending an elite U.S. MBA program, but faced discrimination from employers in his home country of India. His is now a first-year MBA at Columbia Business School. Courtesy photo

Growing up in Southern India, Rajeev Annapragada excelled in school, most often the top 1 or 2% of his class. He figured he’d end up becoming a doctor or engineer.

But at age 12, he suddenly struggled to see the blackboard at the front of the class. He was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder, Retinitis Pigmentosa, that robbed him of 95% of his eyesight.

Without many of the assistive tools and services available to students with disabilities in the U.S., Annapragada adopted his own tricks for completing his education. Friends and family often read to him homework and exam questions, and he would dictate back the answers. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce, Accounting and Costing from Balasiva Degree College, and dreamed of earning an MBA from an elite program in the United States.

In San Francisco, A Small B-School Undergoes A Big — And Impactful — Transformation

Otgontsetseg Erhemjamts is the first person from Mongolia to earn a finance doctorate from a U.S. business school. She is also the first, and only, U.S. B-school dean of Mongolian descent.

But more important than her country of origin or her academic climb is her approach to the job — and what it has meant to the school she now leads.

Dean Otgo, as she is known to everyone at the University of San Francisco School of Management from students to faculty to kitchen staff at the university dining hall, came to the small Jesuit school in summer 2022 with a charge to reverse a worrying years-long slide in enrollment. That charge has become a mission to change … well, everything.

2 Hearts, 2 MBAs, 1 Journey At Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business

Love isn’t just in the air — it’s in the MBA classroom, too.

On Valentine’s Day, Poets&Quants spoke with Diego Miranda and Fernanda Canessa, who last fall embarked on their MBA journey together at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business — the first international couple to enter Scheller’s full-time MBA program post-Covid.

International Women’s Day: She Didn’t Want To Choose Between Motherhood And A Stanford MBA — So She Did Both

Srishti Kawatra poses with the Stanford onesie to announce the upcoming arrival of Baby Kawatra. “If you’ve ever been curious about deciding to have a baby during MBA or otherwise – just ask. I would be more than happy to share. It’s been a rollercoaster ride, and this community has been super supportive. I’m looking forward to this milestone and achieving many new ones this year,’ she wrote in the announcement on the MBA Slack channel

On her very first day at Stanford Graduate School of Business — what MBAs call Day 0 — Srishti Kawatra got some big but not altogether unexpected news: She was pregnant.

As former assistant dean of MBA admissions, Kirsten Moss, gave her welcome speech, Kawatra was thinking about the very special journey she was about to begin: MBA, wife, mother, an accomplished career woman on the cusp of what comes next. While much has been written about the “motherhood penalty” for women pursuing business school as well as demanding post-MBA careers, Kawatra’s pregnancy was welcomed and very much deliberate. All the pieces were falling into place.

Next page: The scandalous stories of 2024 …

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