Tilka Persaud

“Never comfortable with being comfortable, always caring when there’s reason to care”

Hometown: Broward County, Florida

Fun Fact About Yourself: My vice is fancy cheeses. I don’t know much about the names, regions, or compositions of them, but I know what I like when I’m taste testing. Unfortunately, this conflicts directly with my slight lactose intolerance, so all good things in moderation.

Undergraduate School and Major: B.S. and M.Eng. in Chemical Engineering at Cornell University

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Duracell, Inc., Process Control Strategy Engineer II

What has been your favorite part of Atlanta so far?

What has made it such a great place to earn an MBA? I love that Atlanta is central to so many different things: museums, farmers markets, festivals, green spaces – tons of ways to plug in to different things happening and ways to plug out of your typical routine. It’s a great place to earn an MBA since it’s adjacent to so many companies and it’s a hub for both innovators and titans of industry.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was one key part of the Scheller MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you?

I really like that the Scheller MBA has so many different types of practicums to choose from – I think they’re a great way to learn the skills I need in my future career while also giving us an opportunity to connect to the community around us. After having taken a bunch of fundamental courses this semester, I feel ready to take on both the Pro Bono Consulting Practicum and the International Practicum in Japan next semester!

What course, club or activity have you enjoyed the most so far at Georgia Tech?

I’ve really enjoyed learning about all the ‘money’ courses this past semester! Coming from an engineering background, I genuinely didn’t understand that accounting, finance, and economics were different and unique courses. After taking all three, I now have a much better appreciation for these very distinct fields and I’m more curious than ever to go further into these topics with some books and podcasts.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far:

My biggest accomplishment in my career was making the choice to pursue my MBA. I really enjoyed the work I was doing as an engineer, and it was a hard choice to leave the company I was previously with. I really enjoyed the people, the work, and the place where I was living. It’s a huge leap to choose to pivot into something entirely different, and it took months of agonizing before I fully leaned into the change I was going to make in my career. Ultimately, I’m happy with the choice I made, and it feels good to recognize the career pivot for the accomplishment that it is.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far:

As an MBA student, my biggest accomplishment has been the degree to which my network has grown. Scheller is great in part because of how small our cohort is – I’ve gotten the chance to talk with everyone at least once and it’s my goal to have a coffee chat with everyone in our class before we graduate in 2026! We have an amazing cohort and this is the network I want to carry with me well into the future.

What has been your best memory as an MBA so far?

As part of my graduate research assistantship, I work at the front desk for our career services office part time. While this isn’t one specific instance, my best memories are of seeing people come in and out of the office and getting an understanding for who we have here at Scheller. The career coaches often great each other cheerily when they come in and just bring a positive attitude first thing in the morning. Students will come in for coaching sessions or just to say hi. Everyone that comes and goes through that space is so supportive of each other and that’s the first thing I think of when I think of Scheller, and these are the types of memories I’ll continue to carry with me about this school.