Not Starting Over, Starting Right

From IT Consulting To An MBA: Changing Careers At Drexel

Some newcomers arrive with a plan already intact. Mine had to be rebuilt.

I came to the US in 2023 with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science Engineering and 7 years of experience in IT consulting. The job, though, didn't come with me across the ocean - I left it behind when we relocated. For a while, that felt like a big loss: a career I'd spent my 20s building, paused mid-sentence.

But distance has a way of showing you what you actually want. Somewhere in those quiet early months, I got honest with myself. The part of the work I'd always reached for wasn't the code - it was the room where decisions got made. Strategy, teams, the shape of a problem before anyone opens a laptop. I have a flair for leading more than building, and I'd spent years quietly wishing my role matched that.

So in January 2026, I went back to school - an MBA in Applied AI in Business at Drexel's LeBow College of Business. It sits right where I wanted to stand: the bridge between the technical world I came from and the management side I want to grow into, built around how AI is reshaping the way companies actually work.

I'm three terms in now, between the thick of the summer term, and it's strange and good to be a student again at this stage - juggling coursework with everything else life is asking of us right now. Graduation is set for March 2027.

Starting over sounds like a setback. Most days, it feels more like a correction - finally pointing myself in the direction I was meant to go all along.