Real Humans of the Rady School of Management MBA Program

Rumpa Giri, Rady Class of 2019

Hometown: Kolkata, India (However, I immigrated to the USA in 2000 and have been living in San Diego since 2004).

Pre-MBA Work Experience: I have been working in software development since 1998. I have been in Healthcare IT Space since 2000. Currently serving as the Chief Technology Officer at Foresee Medical, Inc.

Why business school? Why now? I have been an engineer my whole life, it gives me great pleasure to write software and see it getting used by physicians. In the journey of “What, Why, How, When” I am proficient at the “How and When” part of the software company. Now I am eager to learn the “What and Why” part of the organization. I became interested in 2015 in the business of creating business after seeing our old company get acquired by a bigger corporation. It was fascinating to see how it unfolded.

Why Rady? What factors figured most prominently into your decision of where to attend? The Rady School has great faculty and its Lab to Market course sequence was a very attractive proposition to me. Lab to Market provides a playground to test ideas I have. Also, UC San Diego at the heart of the biotech cluster, so being close to my work and home also narrowed down the focus to only this school.

What do you think is your most valuable or differentiating contribution to the Rady MBA class? My experience in building healthcare IT software development teams and building engineering teams in startups from the ground up all the way to a successful product launch and acquisition.

Fun fact that didn’t get included on your application? I am a Taekwondo red belt. Currently paused due to work and school but intend to pick it up next year after graduation.

Post-MBA career interests? Be a successful CTO and to build a social business platform for Indian Artisan/Handicraft.

Advice to Current Prospective Applicants

• Come to a class to speak to current students.
• Sit in a class to observe the great professors in action.
• Speak with graduate admissions for guidance on the current state of your application.
• Come to Rady School hosted admissions events.

One thing you would change or do differently? Apply early and not the last day of application deadline!

Part you would have skipped if you could—and what helped you get through it? Nothing comes to mind. The whole experience was awesome!

Greatest highlight so far at Rady?

• The professors are amazing and extremely helpful. The Rady School “family” has been amazing to encourage and foster creative thoughts. Professors are so willing to nurture and curate nascent ideas, giving thoughtful feedback on how to improve the ideas. I feel blessed to be part of Rady School experience.
• Amazing classmates with such diverse backgrounds, so warm, friendly and helpful. It’s great to be in college again!
• Amazing desserts during weekends!

One thing about Rady that you didn’t expect? Cold calling any Rady staff/faculty for help on ideas—and actually getting a response. 🙂

Thing you are most anxious about in your first year?

• Coming back to school after 17 years, I was apprehensive about school cycles etc. And being an international student it was a very new experience to me.
• The quantitative class was hard but great fun; I survived! 🙂

Thing you are most excited about in your first year?

• Learning core components of business such as marketing, micro economics, operations management, finance, and accounting. As an engineer I never dealt with these subjects but I am very interested in learning the breadth of application of these subjects in running a business.
• Now every corner I see a new case study—after the operations management class almost everywhere I am waiting, I begin to analyze the process and throughput!
• Previously I use to solve only engineering problems, but after coming to Rady I feel empowered to give more thoughts to pressing problems around us and how can I make a difference.

regions: San Diego

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