Rising Star Sanjay gets support from U and Rob Jafek

After visiting India and Rising Star Outreach with some MBA classmates, we decided to sponsor one of the kids Sanjay on behalf of our college and the Alumnus Rob Jafek (second row, third from left) who toured with us and spent so much time helping us navigate our adventure in India. 

Sanjay is such a sweet boy.  He has no fear and is constantly asking questions, but when new volunteers approach him, he pretends he is shy and hides his cute face. He is eager to learn, and pays quiet attention to his teacher in class. Sanjay is often found singing and can catch onto a tune after only hearing it once.  When he first arrived at the school, he was stoic and answered his teacher’s questions with a sharp Tamil answer. After a while, his teacher was able to break a smile from him by saying “I love you Sanjay!” in her singsong voice until he cracked. Sanjay now says that he loves his school, and his teacher.  He has a best friend that came from the same colony, Karthik, that he watches out for. They are inseparable, and always fall asleep side by side.

Job search: When it rains it pours

Funny how timing and context are everything. A couple of months ago I was stressed to the max because I didn't have a job lined up when I graduated (hence the theme of my recent posts), and nobody seemed interested in me though I had searched and tried relentlessly. I was talking to a classmate and good friend, Deven Dustin, and he encouraged me that things just magically seem to pop up in April and May. True to form I had five interviews today with three different companies. No offers yet, but it feels good to be wanted.

But now that the context and luck have changed I'm stressing out because I have too many things pulling at me. Just a couple of weeks ago a mentor approached me about an opportunity to be a biotech equity analyst on Wall Street. Are you kidding me? Do you know how many doors that would open for my career, not to mention the adventure? At first I hesitated because I'm a med device guy, but with further contemplation I decided I would be crazy not to at least be open to it. One time I turned down an opportunity to interview with P&G because I'm not really interested. It didn't occur to me at the time that the chance to interview with them alone would be worth it. So today I had a phone interview with the Wall Street recruiter. Intense and totally fun.

I'm not quite sure what my future holds and I can't wait to find out. Hang in there fellow job hunters.