Ramachandra Journey: From overcoming personal battles to pursuing their MBA at Tuck School of Business

Nevertheless, it didn’t faze Ramachandra’s spirit. In fact, it emboldened his spirit. Yet life sprung on him another challenge – Alopecia. Being diagnosed with Alopecia at age 8, he started losing all his hair. Through the support of his empathetic and strong-willed mother and a strong community of friends who never made him feel judged or different, Ramachandra found his footing. 

With a natural inclination towards science and engineering, he worked hard and got admitted to IIT Dhanbad. These four years at IIT opened Ramachandra’s eyes to the world. Seeing folks apply themselves in classes and then pursue hobbies in totally unrelated fields, he realized how so many children not only lack formal training but also do not get exposure to the opportunities out there for them. This translated to him co-founding Saradi Mentoring Cohort to provide formal mentorship and career guidance to 2000+ children from underserved communities. 

After graduating, Ramachandra began his career at Reliance Industries as a Subsea Operations Engineer. Based out of Mumbai, his job operated in 28-day shifts, which meant that he worked for 28 days straight off-shore in the middle of the ocean and then had 28 days off. This provided Ramachandra a lot of flexibility to not only commit himself to his work but also explore other things and activities. 

Reeling from a knee injury, he decided to challenge himself and decided to try out mountaineering. Completing his first trek to Roopkund Lake, also known as Skeleton Lake, at an altitude of 15,696 feet was an exhilarating experience. This infused Ramachandra with excitement to go back, gain formal training, and lead treks. That’s when he received a 15-day training and became a Member of the India Mountaineering Association, wherein he led 15 immersive 12-day treks for groups of 25 to the Everest Base Camp at an altitude of 18,000 feet. 

Accomplishing this impressive feat taught Ramachandra the values of problem-solving, thinking on your feet, resilience, risk management, decision-making, and leadership, all of which came to his rescue when, amidst the trail of destruction, super-cyclone Hud-Hud unleashed in Visakhapatnam. Because of the cyclone, they had to immediately burn off all the inventory and evacuate ~300 people at risk. 

Leading this evacuation had a huge impact on Ramachandra. Seeing all the dead fish surrounding the rig, huge flames, and everyone running to save their lives made Ramachandra realize that things needed to change. 

Instead of continuing in Operations, he decided to shift firms and work towards minimizing the impact of such activities on the environment. Driving innovation and transformative change, he conceptualized a novel solution for optimizing CO2 transportation at Schlumberger and pioneered a transformative technology to reduce Scope-1 emissions from Oil & Gas plants, amongst many others. 

Staying true to his natural self, who believed in not only working hard but living a fuller life, he founded a walking club in Chennai in collaboration with the Chennai wildlife conservation team. He organized 62 coastal line walks to collect turtle eggs during the breeding season for conservation. 

To give back to the community, he consulted with an NGO working in the environment space in Gurgaon and helped them reduce industrial complex food waste and tackle plastic pollution. 

However, his longest-standing commitment has been with the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. Wanting to help others battling the same issues as him, he joined the foundation as a volunteer. However, receiving a random call from a woman on the verge of wanting to give up on herself at 2 am in the night shook Ramachandra up. Burdened by the social norms and dealing with exclusion, this woman really needed something to latch on to for a renewed sense of hope.  

Finding himself amidst a crisis far deeper than he could ever fathom, Ramachandra instinctively counseled her, asked a friend to meet her up in person, and sought guidance from experts to help her deal with it. Building a support system for her and providing her guidance over the following months enabled the woman to get her life back on track and start her own entrepreneurial journey. 

Seeing the impact of his work, Ramachandra decided to take on a much more active role in the organization. He became a Support Group Leader and took the initiative to raise funds and increase the foundation’s membership. These experiences provided Ramachandra’s profile with a holistic appeal and were quite instrumental in his business school applications. 

Circling back to Ramachandra’s career and why he wanted to pursue an MBA. Working for McKinsey, he developed solutions for companies in multiple functioning areas of the Oil & Gas value chain. This exposure gave him an insight into the world of consulting and piqued his interest in business strategy as an area. Wanting to develop skills in sustainable business strategies and broaden his consulting toolkit along with leadership skills, Ramachandra applied to business schools. 

After months of hard work and back-and-forth between him and Aparna, his Admissions Gateway Consultant, Ramachandra, submitted applications to top business schools and made it to Tuck with $30,000 in financial aid. 

Describing his experience so far at Tuck, Ramachandra shared, “It has been a lovely rollercoaster. I feel like I just landed in Boston and came to Hanover yesterday, but that’s not the case. 

I’m doing a lot of stuff here. Tuck has a very special thing called tripod hockey, which you can only experience here. Prospective students should look into it. Even if you don’t have any expertise in skating or hockey, you’ll be made a champion in two or three days. 

The outdoor scene at Tuck is super amazing. I’ve already done five treks in the last one month. 

The academics are pretty intense. We think academics are unimportant for an MBA, but Tuck really focuses on them. The academic rigor is well-thought-out, and the professors have been amazing.

Tuck folks will go to any extent to make your life as easy as possible. So yeah, it’s been a very engaging and enlightening experience. Tuck has a very tight-knit community, so that really helps.

When you join the school, you are probably the only ones on campus because your second years are probably on leave or internships. They will join you after a month or so. So, you don’t know anyone. Everybody’s new to you, all strangers, and then there are 300 folks. Tuck really puts you with people, and they ask you to open up about things that are very personal.

The intention is that if you know them on a personal level, you can collaborate better in your study groups. But also, it takes a lot of courage from your side to let your guard down and share personal things. So that’s a really exhilarating experience.

One specific example I’d like to share is that there is a whole concept called River of Life, where you sit down with a partner, a random stranger assigned to you by the committee. And then you’re going to narrate your whole life journey from where you started to Tuck for one and a half hours, and they will do the same thing. Then, you need to reflect on both your and their journey w.r.t. what they have shared and what stood out for you in their journey, and they will share their perspective on their journey as well as yours.

It’s so surprising that 80 to 90% of the time, for all 300 students, it really matches that perspective. The perspective I came about my partner and the perspective my partner came about her own self really matched. So, I would say it is the culmination of a very intense week. We’re getting to know people on a personal level. This also lends itself to a lot of clarity – you reflect and realize what your passions truly are and then create plans to realize them. 

That’s what Tuck is about. It’s been two months, and I feel I know at least 200 folks out of my class. I know I can say ‘Hi’ to anyone. I can just drop by in a cafeteria and talk about things with anyone. I’m unsure if it will be possible with any other school.”