Thanks for inviting me for this. I'm excited to talk to the community about my past, my experiences. So, I'm originally from India. I've lived in a bunch of different places in India and then I ended up going to IIT Kanpur for my undergrad studies. But then I've been forced to live in very different parts of the world. So, I have lived in Denmark. I have lived in Hong Kong. I used to work in the US for a few years before I went back to grad school. So, I've had varied experiences. That sort of also breaks into things I like to do. So, I like to do a lot of photography. I'm not able to do as much of it after becoming a faculty member especially a junior faculty. But I love photography, I love traveling. I used to read a lot. I read a lot of papers now. I don't read as much, like, fiction or non-fiction books that I used to read earlier. But it's great, I think being a part of this community, we get to meet very interesting folks and get their insights on not only research, but also general life. And I think that's very exciting for me, to talk to colleagues about their perspective on different things that are happening around us.

We don't have an undergraduate program at Heinz. The only programs we run are the masters programs and we have a bunch of different masters programs. So we have the masters in information systems which is the flagship program. We also have the masters in public policy management, which is also a relatively big program. And then we have a bunch of different programs like master of arts management and masters of entertainment management. I think being at CMU, the unique characteristic is everything is very quantitative, even the policy programs are very quantitative. But the interesting part is even though these programs are very different, and I think there are very few schools that offer all these programs in the same department or the same school, there is a lot of overlap in terms of what students learn from each other. So, they get a very well-rounded education whether they are in the MISM program or the MSPM program or the MPPM program. They get a lot of varied experience that they would not have in just a policies school or in a information systems or a business school.

That's a very interesting question. I think this is something that we struggle with every year in terms of how to get the right students at the time that they're applying. And also Heinz is very unique in the courses it offers. So, the MISM program for example is somewhere in between an MS program and an MBA program. So, what has happened over the years is, since the brand name has developed, we are able to acquire a lot of students who have some information about the program. So, there are people who are our ex-students and they're sent an outline for their program. So, that is something that has helped us in sort of having us this mix but also executing the market in terms of what are the skill sets that we are developing for this students. Some misconception is, so, a lot of students who apply to our program are international and so, they don't know exactly what they're getting into when they sign up for the program. So, some people come thinking about the CMU brand name, for example, and think it's gonna be totally about programming and very technical skills, and sometimes their experience is not exactly that. And of course, all this information is available on the website in terms of what is the course structure. But I think there is, sometimes, a mismatch in expectations, especially the people are thinking of this as MS in CS program, I think it's not exactly that. It's very different, and there's really a very good mix between a business program and an information path and a masters in CS program. So, I think that's a challenge that we face. I think increasingly that is not an issue going forward. There are some other issues that have come up now because of the immigration policy in the US. How's that gonna affect the students applying for the program, it is not very clear yet. We're still going through the admissions process for this year. So, I think at the end of this semester, we'll find out what was the impact. I think the immigration policy hasn't really changed. I think there is a little bit of uncertainty in terms of what is going to happen in the future. So, I think that is another issue that is not only uncertain for the students, it's also uncertain for us in terms of how to go about. But I think our programs are fairly balanced. We have a significant portion of women who apply for our programs and I think that number has been increasing. In fact, I think CMU is very good in creating this diversity in the classroom and we're focusing very heavily on diversity not only at Heinz but at CMU more broadly. Yeah, I think one of the suggestions that I have is it would be great to have students who are thinking about entrepreneurship, also should be applying to this. So, technically minded entrepreneurs should be coming to programs like the MISM program, not only at Heinz, but in other schools too because I think it gives them the technical depth, but also the business depth that they need to start their companies. This is something I would really recommend entrepreneurs who are still trying to figure out what they want to do and they're looking at grad studies, that is the next step. So, that should be my two cents.