{"id":55275,"date":"2022-06-27T13:56:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T20:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=55275"},"modified":"2022-06-27T13:56:35","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T20:56:35","slug":"empowering-international-students-with-the-financing-for-grad-ed-podcast-episode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/empowering-international-students-with-the-financing-for-grad-ed-podcast-episode\/","title":{"rendered":"Empowering International Students with the Financing for Grad Ed [Podcast Episode]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Sasha<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Podcast:\u00a0Play in new window<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Download<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Embed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts<\/a> | Google Podcasts<\/a> | Spotify<\/a> | Android<\/a> | Stitcher<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can an international student pay for grad school in the U.S. or Canadian graduate education? [Show Summary]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

MPOWER Financing has changed the graduate education financing industry by offering international students loans with no collateral or co-signer requirement. Sasha Ramani, the Associate Director of Corporate Strategy explains how they do this responsibly and shares his own journey through graduate school<\/a>, which led him to this role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interview with Sasha Ramani, Associate Director of Corporate Strategy, MPOWER Financing [Show Notes]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the 476th episode of Admissions Straight Talk<\/em>. Thanks for tuning in. Are any of you, whether in the United States or outside of the United States, aiming for the MBA Trinity of Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton? Well, you\u2019re in luck. Next week I\u2019m going to present What It Takes to Get Accepted to Harvard, Stanford and Wharton<\/a><\/em> on Thursday, June 23rd. The webinar is free, but you do need to register to reserve your spot at accepted.com\/hsw<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d like to welcome to Admissions Straight Talk <\/em>Sasha Ramani. Sasha grew up in Canada and graduated with distinction from the University of Waterloo where he quadruple majored in Actuarial Science, Statistics, Operations Research, and Business Administration, while also being active on campus. After graduating, he worked for Mars & Co and Deloitte as a Strategy Consultant before moving on to the Harvard Kennedy School, where he completed his MPP in Business and Government. Since 2017, he has worked with MPOWER Financing<\/a>, a fast-growing FinTech company, providing millions to promising international and DACA students without collateral or co-signers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you tell us a little bit about your background? [2:05]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sure, absolutely. I\u2019m from a city called Mississauga. It\u2019s a suburb of Toronto in Canada. That\u2019s where I was born and raised. I spent my entire childhood there until the end of college. Then I moved to New York City and worked as a management consultant for two different consultancies, Mars & Co and Deloitte Consulting. I specialized in investment management. That\u2019s the traditional consulting work of helping firms grow and expand, advising on mergers and acquisitions, cost-cutting, or other ways they can expand their product or geographic services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that, I moved on to the Harvard Kennedy School<\/a> where I got a Master\u2019s in Public Policy. That\u2019s when I came across MPOWER almost by accident. I came across the firm at a startup career fair, not even looking for jobs, but just looking for interesting startups and getting a flavor for what people were doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It just sort of crossed my mind that if for me, as a Canadian in the U.S., which makes me the least international of all students, to get a bank account, a credit card, or other bread and butter financial product was kind of like pulling teeth \u2013 imagine what it\u2019s like for a student from India, China, Mexico, Brazil, or any of the other 200 plus countries thatMPOWER serves. So I did my graduate school internship with MPOWER in 2017. I loved the experience. When I completed my master\u2019s in 2018, I joined full-time and I\u2019ve had the pleasure of being the Head of Corporate Strategy ever since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you go from the very focused to the big picture? [4:07]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

My undergraduate was a double undergrad between a Bachelor\u2019s in Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, and a BBA, Bachelor\u2019s of Business Administration, from next-door Wilfrid Laurier University. It\u2019s a short walk between these schools, about 15 minutes. They\u2019ve collaborated to have this cross-disciplinary double undergraduate program together. It\u2019s actually considered one of Canada\u2019s leading undergraduate programs for students interested in those fields. It\u2019s also a co-op program, which means students take work terms that are interplaced between study terms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realized that what I liked most about my experience doing co-op jobs as an actuary was the part that made me feel like a management consultant. That\u2019s when you go into an organization, you solve a problem, which may or may not be clearly defined, for four months at a time. Then you leave. You go back to school and if your company likes you, they\u2019ll hire you back again for the next co-op term for your next internship, so to speak. That\u2019s what made me really get interested in management consulting. I sort of realized at some point that I was personally not a huge fan of actuarial work. I chose it because if you look at all the rankings of jobs with good salaries for not much stress, actuaries tend to top the charts. But ultimately when I was in my early twenties I felt, \u201cYou know what? I\u2019m not afraid of a little stress. I\u2019m not afraid of a little challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, I got a good job in management consulting in New York City. What young twenty-something year old would not jump at the opportunity to move to New York City? Especially me being a sheltered Canadian child. Ultimately looking back, I don\u2019t want to say it was a risky decision, but it was definitely a little bit riskier than the cushier actuarial job that was waiting for me in Toronto after I completed my undergraduate. But I have never looked back since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did you decide to pursue the MPP? [6:59]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I seriously looked into both an MPP and MBA. They are definitely not mutually exclusive. Students can, depending on the schools, absolutely do both. Each degree is typically two years in length, but a lot of schools offer the option to do both. For myself personally, I felt that if you look at what a lot of career outcomes are like for MBA students, they tend to be consulting. That tends to be the biggest employer. At that point, I\u2019d already had five years of consulting experience, which my colleagues described to me as a \u201creal life MBA,\u201d which a lot of it was. I also did have an undergraduate business experience from one of Canada\u2019s leading schools in that field. I felt that personally, I would gain a little bit less from an MBA experience than other folks who do an MBA. The last thing I\u2019m going to do is denigrate the MBA experience but I felt for me it would not have been a great fit, especially at a school like the Harvard Business School<\/a>, which has a very regimented first-year core curriculum with zero flexibility in that first year. Personally, I felt that I already had a strong academic and practical experience compared to what that core would\u2019ve trained me with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a strong interest in policy, particularly foreign policy. The reason I ultimately wanted to do that is that a lot of my management consulting experience was consulting for large beverage companies. I realized at some point, if I\u2019m doing my job well and helping sell more sugary beverages, I\u2019m ultimately making the world a less well-off place. I wanted to achieve some social good or impact but I\u2019m a very private sector-oriented person. I\u2019m not one who\u2019s inherently going to work for nonprofits or join the government. For me, that\u2019s less of a good fit. In terms of seeking social benefit through the private sector or through business, the MPP at the Harvard Kennedy School<\/a> was a great fit for me and my interests, while also allowing me to pick and choose the specific courses that I wanted to take at Harvard Business School, MIT\u2019s Business School, and Harvard Law School. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I did graduate with an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, I had a very cross-disciplinary education, not only at Harvard, but at next-door MIT as well. I had to do the required curriculum at the Harvard Kennedy School. So in one sense, I couldn\u2019t move away from the core curriculum entirely, but the Kennedy School does offer more flexibility. Their core curriculum, which is math and economics, are things, which thanks to my background, I was able to really get top grades in without having to worry too much. I was able to go above the course load, which again was not possible at the Business School.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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