My hult Review- 2013 Passout

Sayanth Nohra- 2013, MSE, Sanfransico

I chose Hult because of their unique Master’s Program in “Social Entrepreneurship”. How was my overall Hult experience? Fantastic! Here’s why. I remember stepping out of the San Francisco Airport with my guitar, a tennis racket, two suitcases and an open heart, it was approximately 11am and sun was shining bright. I looked up and thanked my blessings, and also said to myself, “Waahh, so this is America”. I just could not believe it. Everything happened so fast back in India- My plans to join Hult, the final acceptance, goodbyes, and all of a sudden I’m on the other side of the world. San Francisco is really the epicenter of Innovation, entrepreneurship and paradise of anything bizarre. The Hult building is located in the heart of financial district and close to almost anywhere fun. The minute I’m inside the building familiar faces, colors, accents and hugs greet me warmly. My batch was the smallest in number, little less the 45 students out of which almost 30 came from a different country. You will get this from almost any Hult student, “We all came from diverse backgrounds and cultures, but after few months you will know that we’re all the same, really”. We will know that some stereotypes are false and funnily enough, some are almost true. Working with a hugely diverse group is a massive learning opportunity and many companies are looking for people who brings this experience. About the teachers, I have to applaud the management for finding such genius individuals who are also actual social change-makers apart from teaching. What better way and people to learn from. Everyone professor brought something unique that they left for us to take away. There is really no particular way to teach social entrepreneurship and therefore professors took advantage to try things differently, an approach I embraced. The good thing was the work load was just enough to keep us busy and have a good social life at the same time. Utilizing your free time is very important because San Francisco has so much to offer with countless interesting events happening every day. I went to many networking events too, but to be honest these events are attended by people who are helpless and jobless. In a place like San Francisco, you are more likely to land yourself in a job from a bar than a standard job application process. If you don’t drink, fill a glass with water and don’t be afraid to do the talking.Once you are out of your house,it is inevitable that you crash into interesting people doing phenomenal stuff…in my case, I was out almost every time I got an opportunity. What made my experience better? As much as I love people from my country, India, I made sure that I did not hangout with them all time. I stayed with 3 awesome students doing a different Master’s program and from different countries: Greece, Turkey and Vietnam. This made sure I also knew other students from different cohorts and programs, try new cuisines and show-off your own cuisine. A lot of interesting student organized clubs are formed in Hult and I helped create one too called the SoBiz (social business club) which still grows strong with the new batch of students. Hult students will know people from so many countries, but they may not have local friends(in our case local American friends)…therefore I hung out in places where the locals go too. In San Francisco, I would recommend Madrone Art bar. Hult’s got talent was fun. I participated, sang a song with a Norwegian, we lost…not even third place... surely the judges had terrible taste in music and I still feel we deserved first. The action project was my highlight of the year. While few close friends of mine went along to win the Hult Prize regionals, they needed to test the idea in real before the final presentation at the Clinton Global Initiative. So, we came in and made it happen as part of our action project! Me along with one girl from Italy and a guy from Canada left to India to conduct an intensive pilot in 2 urban slums of Gujarat. We were able to use all our learnings from the university into action and yes, the pilot was successful. We also had the opportunity to go to New York for the HultPrize competition and be in a room filled with the most powerful people on the planet. I spoke with the one person who influenced me into taking up social entrepreneurship – Prof Muhammad Yunus. Few weeks before my graduation, I got a mail from Hult’s student services staying that I was elected to speak as the Social Entrepreneurship class representative for the pre graduation event. Such a great honor…infact too good to be true that I wrote back to them asking “Hey, is the a spam mail?” Wow, who would have imagined all this was possible when I was applying to Hult from a nasty apartment in Gurgaon, Delhi…a time when I did not have any clue of my next step in life, just a strong determination to do good. Well, my life at Hult definitely made me a stronger confident human being. I’m well connected to people doing incredible things globally. My professional portfolio looks better than ever. The Hult experience does not stop in the classroom, it begins there and I’m living it to the fullest.

Thanyou for Everything