From HR in India to Quant Analyst in New York: How Carnegie Mellon Helped Tapasya Reinvent Her Career

Tapasya's journey from building a nearly five-year career in HR at a public sector company in India to becoming a Quant Analyst at Citi in New York took an unexpected turn when she decided to revisit a dream she had put on hold after her undergraduate years. 

A conversation with a departing colleague brought her plans to study in the US back into focus, leading her to apply to Carnegie Mellon University almost on a whim. After receiving her admit, however, COVID delayed her move to the US by more than a year. When she finally arrived in Pittsburgh, she had to adjust to a new country while also making a much bigger career transition from HR into finance and analytics. She used her existing HR experience as a foundation rather than starting completely from scratch, gradually building the skills needed for quant analytics. The job search came with thousands of rejections, but a single LinkedIn message eventually helped her land her first US opportunity. 

Today, Tapasya works as a Quant Analyst at Citi in New York, having built a new career in a field very different from where she started.

For Tapasya, the journey wasn't simply about returning to a study-abroad plan she had once shelved. It meant making a career change after years of professional experience, navigating an unexpected delay, and finding a way to carry what she had already learned in HR into an entirely new field.

Tapasya's Journey at a Glance

• From: India
• Background: Nearly 5 years of HR experience at a public sector company
• University: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
• Decision: Revived her US study plans after years of working in HR
• Challenge: COVID delayed her move by more than a year
• Career Shift: HR → Finance and Quant Analytics
• Job Search: Thousands of rejections before landing her first US role
• Breakthrough: Reached out through LinkedIn and secured her first US opportunity
• Now: Quant Analyst at Citi, New York

“Here’s Tapasya, in her own words.”

Q. You mentioned this plan started right after your undergrad. What happened in between?

I genuinely had this idea right after graduating, but I was scared and honestly unsure if I could even make it happen. I hadn't prepared for the GRE at the time; I was preparing for CAT instead, and that path worked out, so I decided to stay back, did my MBA in India, and started working in HR at a public sector company. I was there for almost four and a half to five years.

Q. What eventually brought the idea back?

Part of my job involved handling employee exits, so I'd regularly talk to people leaving the company about what they were moving on to. A few of my colleagues were moving abroad, and those conversations reignited something in me. I reached out to a few of them for guidance on how they prepared and what resources they used. What really helped was that my CAT preparation overlapped a lot with GRE quant, so I already had a foundation. I told my friends I would be unavailable for about three months, and I focused completely on my preparation.

Q. How did you land on business analytics and Carnegie Mellon specifically?

I had an engineering undergrad and an MBA, so I was looking for something that sat between the two, not deep coding, but not purely management either. Business analytics and information systems management fit that gap well. I got guidance from seniors who had already gone down this path, and their advice was to apply to a mix of schools: some safe options, some moderately ambitious, and one real reach. CMU was my reach school. Honestly, a lot of the people helping me didn't think I should even bother applying there; they were fairly discouraging about my chances. But I had a strong intuition about it, and I applied right on the deadline, January 10th.

Q. What happened once the admit came through?

It was one of only two admits out of the six schools I applied to, and it landed right before COVID hit. I'd already resigned from my job by that point, genuinely excited, and then the world shut down. My move, originally planned for May 2020, ended up getting pushed all the way to August 2021. CMU was incredibly cooperative through all of it; they kept accommodating the delays.

Q. Did you ever consider backing out during that delay?

I did think about it, honestly. There was a real question of what if I started over in a completely different market, with all the post-COVID uncertainty. But the question I kept coming back to was simple: ten years from now, looking back, would I regret playing it safe? I didn't want to live with that regret, and that's really what pushed me to follow through.

Q. What did CMU do to help you use the delay productively?

They offered something called a slow start, where I could take a couple of courses remotely from India, essentially getting a head start on credits before physically arriving, and they covered the cost of it, which functioned almost like a scholarship. I was working full-time in India during that period while also taking courses like Java and Python remotely. It was intense, but it meant I wasn't starting completely from zero once I got here.

Q. Why only the US, and not other countries?

That one was more personal than strategic. I had family in the UK, and I wanted to be the first in my family to build something in a country where I had no one. I do have a distant cousin in the US, but no immediate family. That pushed me to explore the US specifically.

Q. How did you fund the degree?

I didn't take a loan. My family supported me, and I used some of my savings as well, which I'd built up during my years working in India. It was still expensive; tuition alone came to roughly a hundred thousand dollars, so I investigated how to offset it. Before I moved, I began contacting professors about teaching assistant positions. I made it a personal goal to secure at least one TA role every semester, which helped cover daily expenses and part of my rent. One semester I even took on two TA roles at once, which, combined with how demanding CMU's coursework already is, meant I barely slept. But it was worth it.

Q. What was it like finding community before you'd even arrived?

Some of us who'd have to delay our start connected over WhatsApp with other incoming students, and that's actually how I found my roommate. We planned our move and our stay together before we'd even met in person. Having a few familiar faces going through the same thing made a real difference once we actually got here, even with the pandemic restrictions, masks in class, and the general isolation of that period.

Q. How did your parents react when you told them?

I actually kept the entire application process a secret, from my parents, my friends, and almost everyone, except one manager whose help I needed for a recommendation letter. I only told my family once the admits started coming in. Even then, they were hesitant at first; I had a genuinely good, stable job in India, and leaving it felt risky to them. What really shifted things was the Carnegie Mellon name itself, which they took seriously. My savings helped too; it made the decision feel less reckless. They've been fully supportive ever since, and my dad tells me now that he's genuinely proud. I think studying abroad was something he once wanted for himself too.

Q. How did the job search actually go once you graduated?

Brutal at first, honestly. I came from campus placements in India and had zero experience navigating an open job market. I applied broadly, probably a few hundred applications total, and got rejected constantly. At one point I genuinely emailed my dean asking if the university had made a mistake admitting me. He told me, If you can't trust yourself, trust us; you'll be fine. That stuck with me. Eventually, LinkedIn became my biggest asset. I stopped just applying cold and started directly reaching out to people at companies I was keen to work for. One of my early roles came from a message I sent to someone who mentioned they might have an opening, which led to a hiring manager, an interview the very next day, and an offer by the end of it.

Q. You also had an interesting rejection-turned-offer story. What happened there?

That one was with Boston Consulting Group. My initial application got rejected outright, but I managed to reach the hiring manager directly through LinkedIn, and they reopened my application. It actually turned into an offer for a more senior role than the one I'd originally applied for. I ended up not accepting it, since I had a better opportunity elsewhere at the time, but it taught me how much reaching out directly can change outcomes here.

Q. How did you pivot from HR into something as technical as quant analytics?

Strategically, not all at once. I knew I couldn't compete directly with classmates who already had years of hands-on data science experience, so instead of trying to erase my HR background, I leaned into it. I looked specifically for roles in HR analytics, which let me combine my domain expertise with the technical skills I'd picked up during my master's. That combination was what actually got recruiters to take a chance on me, and it became the bridge into more purely technical, finance-facing analytics roles later on.

Q. And how did you land your current role at Citi?

Almost entirely by chance. I ran into a former classmate one evening, and in the middle of catching up, she mentioned she was quitting her job to move to the West Coast for her husband. She asked if I wanted her role, and the next thing I knew, I was working with that team. I've been there about two and a half years now. It reinforced something I already believed: opportunities here can come from anywhere, and you have to stay open to them.

Q. What's life like for you in New York now?

Genuinely full. I do kickboxing regularly, which has become both a workout and a community for me. I've gotten back into dancing, something I loved growing up, and found a local group here. I travel a lot too, including a fair amount of solo travel, since waiting for company to be available shouldn't be the reason you stay home. I've recently picked up hiking, and I try new things with friends when I can, like pottery classes, clay workshops, and that kind of thing. I live alone, work a hybrid schedule, and spend three to four days in the office, and I try to enjoy the summers here in the city, especially since the winters can be pretty rough.

Q. What would you tell someone sitting where you were, right after their undergrad, unsure if they should go?

Never give up on something you genuinely want, even if it takes years longer than you expected. There will always be people and circumstances telling you no, but if it's truly in your heart, have the courage to go after it anyway. I've heard so many people say, ten years later, that they wish they'd done it. It's scary; I didn't know what I was getting into either, but if it's what you want, live that life fully. That's really the only thing I'd want anyone to take from my story.