It was a few months ago that I first arrived at Tuck. As someone who was born and bred in an 8 million strong city in India, I would be amiss if I did not talk about 12,000 strong Hanover experience. For those of you who read Agatha Christie growing up, Hanover in a nutshell, is like many of the little towns Hercule Poirot visits to solve crimes. Minus the crime, of course.
Here are some quick facts about Hanover that blew my mind:
Now that I’ve bulletized (like a true business school student) why Hanover is an awesome place to live, let’s move on to Tuck. Every student at Tuck goes through a roller coaster of a term called Fall A*. If you are an international student, expect a few more crazy twists and turns in the ride. Make no mistake, it will be hard being uprooted from everything familiar and there will be tough days that will make you question your choice. It will be a cultural shock, no matter how much American television you watched growing up. But there is no place better than Tuck to go through this experience and grow.
Tuck not only encourages diversity but celebrates it. Despite this, there are numerous challenges that come in the way of achieving complete inclusiveness in a group of extremely diverse people – socially, culturally and intellectually. Tuck realizes these challenges and dedicates impressive amount of time and resources to address them. Be it the diversity and inclusion workshop that helped us recognize and work through our inherent biases or the international night that gave us an opportunity to share all of the beautiful stories of our home countries, Tuck provides the platform for us to grow while being ourselves.
In addition to the student-driven inclusion activities, the entire Tuck staff—professors, admission committee members, program office executives, career development office mentors, are some of the kindest and most empathetic people I have come across. Having helped generations of international students at Tuck, they know what we go through even better than we do and guide us through challenging times. On a tough day, all you need is a conversation with any one of them to realize that there is an entire army of people waiting just to support you.
Tuck staff, including the MBA Program Office pictured above, "are some of the kindest and most empathetic people I have come across," says Keerthi Vallabhapurapu T’20.
All in all, the experience of being a part of the record-breaking Tuck class of 2020 has left me in awe of everyone around me. It has made me feel incredibly privileged to be surrounded by some of the brightest minds. It has given me an opportunity to learn, not just through class but through unimaginably diverse experiences of people, literally from all over the world. One month in to the Tuck experience, we might not yet be the best of friends, but we definitely are a community who will stand for each other and enable each other’s growth. We all benefit and contribute to the Tuck fabric and we are proud to say that #WeAreTuck!
*As of academic year 2021 – 2022, “Fall A” is now termed Summer Term and “Fall B” is termed Fall Term.
Sree Keerthi Vallabhapurapu is an MBA Candidate at Tuck School of Business, Class of 2020. Prior to Tuck she was a principal consultant at Orbees Business Solutions in Hyderabad, India. She earned a BE in electronics and communications engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad.
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