Himanshu

My name is Himanshu and I come from India. After my Bachelors's in Delhi, I moved to the UK for a Master of Science. A year later I moved to Brussels to get a second masters. I was awarded a summer fellowship by the Science Foundation of Ireland to work as a EUREKA Summer Research Student at the National University of Ireland, Galway. I began working for Barco as an Optics Research Engineer and moved up to an R&D Lead Scientist, Screen Technology, Virtual Reality Systems.

I am fluent in three languages, English, Hindi, and Dutch.

I left India when I was 22 years old after completing my Bachelor of Engineering from the Delhi College of Engineering to get my Masters in the UK at the University of St. Andrews. I graduated with an MSc in Photonics. I got a second Master, an M.S in Photonics from Ghent University. Even though I had degrees from India, Uk, and Belgium, I still felt that the scope for my field i.e., photonics, was limited to Europe. I wanted to gain experience outside Belgium and Europe and also get into a more challenging position in my career. So I decided to apply for an MBA in the US so that I could switch rapidly into a senior management position while continuing my career in the US.

Even though I got 740 in the GMAT it was not easy at all as I had completely underestimated the difficulty level of the verbal section of the GMAT. I had to relearn English from the basics as the level of English that I knew was not enough for the level that is required by the GMAT. Added to the fact that I am not a great reader, improving my grammar and reading abilities were key to help me get a good verbal score that was required.

When I applied for the MBA I already had two masters that I had recently gotten. It wasn’t easy to explain to the admissions committee why I wanted to go for further studies as I had recently completed my second masters. My family owns movie theatres in Delhi and I am interested in developing Hi-Tech movie theatres in Delhi after my MBA. For my project, I developed a business model that was based on it. However, it was very difficult to explain this to the admissions committee as my previous studies had all been in the field of photonics. So finding the right approach by exhibiting the abilities and also admitting that I lacked the skills to develop it without an MBA to guide me was necessary.

Coming to New York was a strange experience for me and being a part of NYU was very eye-opening. Coming from a country like India where diversity in language, manners, and modes of thinking is very common, I was still astounded by the diversity of the student body and the number of perspectives that I realized I was still ignorant about

The classes are highly interesting and one enjoys the flexible routines of the classes. Stern doesn’t have any classes on Fridays to accommodate the numerous activities going on. So it is a well-paced program that helps the students balance study and life.

As a student of the MBA Center, I was surrounded by numerous students who were very surprised at my lack of knowledge about the schools and life on various campuses, the expectations and what the school can give. So the first piece of advice that I would give to students is to make thorough research into the various schools in order to better understand what the school is about and what it can bring them. Talking to admission counselors is not enough. Try to get in touch with former students and alumni who can actually guide you about such things and do not just rely on rankings.

Don’t disqualify yourself. Lots of students know that the admission process is difficult. For me, it was even more difficult as I got only 740 in my GMAT which is quite low for an Indian as we have a lot of competition amongst ourselves. I never believed I would get into a good MBA Program. After taking the GMAT I stopped the admission process and did not go back to the MBA Center to complete the process with Dr. Hubert Silly and his team. However, Hubert counseled me that each profile has its positives and negatives and what MBA Programs are looking for is diversity amongst the profiles. You really need to take a chance on yourself. This advice helped me to stay focused and I ultimately got into NYU Stern. I also managed to get scholarships in schools like Berkeley and others. So, take a chance on yourself, and talk to experts like Dr. Hubert Silly who can guide you in your process.