A Day in the Life: Joysha Agarwal ’26
We followed Silver Scholar Joysha Agarwal as she went to class, worked on assignments, and ate at her favorite New Haven spots.
8:15 a.m.
I’m not a morning person at all, but I have 8:30 classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays this fall. Since I reached SOM with time to spare, I got a coffee at McNay Café and rushed to the fourth floor, making it to my class Pricing and Managing Sustainable Assets just in time. This course is cross-listed with the Yale School of the Environment (YSE), which I love because I get to meet a lot of new people. I’m also interested in making the business case for sustainability, understanding how you value or quantify important assets. This subject can feel heavy, but the professor, Todd Cort, is very conversational and interested in hearing our opinions.
That day we were studying double materiality, an ESG reporting framework. After class, I asked a few follow-up questions with Harshit Agrawal, a friend from YSE who’s working on a class project with me.
10:00 a.m.
On Tuesdays, I go directly to my next class, Strategic Market Measurement with K. Sudhir. I chose this course because I didn’t have a big quantitative background before SOM and it’s been a great way to build those skills. We’re working with Python using AI, which is quite interesting. I’m also interested in this because I want to work in fashion and consumer products, and marketing insights are so central to that field.
I sit next to Luci Lyu, my roommate and one of my closest friends. I’m part of the Silver Scholars program, an accelerated MBA track for students joining right out of college. You spend your first year at SOM, then take time to gain professional experience before returning for your second year. My first year at SOM was 2022-2023, and I spent the following two years working, first in sustainability consulting in the U.S., and then building a DIY fashion e-commerce startup in India, before returning to school. Luci started out in my cohort and returned at the same time, so we’ve had each other from the get-go.
11:30 a.m.
Class wrapped up just before lunch, so no one had to rush off. I caught up with a few friends. Some consulting recruiting emails had gone out during class, so we were reviewing the new information together.
11:45 a.m.
Luci, Nina Chung, and I are all doing consulting recruiting, and we had an application test later that day. We reserved a breakout room and did some practice tests together so that we could help each other if we got stuck.
12:15 p.m.
The weather was nice, so for lunch I took Luci to one of my new favorite Orange Street spots, a Latin American deli called Sabor Sajoma. I love their lunch specials, and I often grab an empanada if I’m walking by.
2:00 p.m.
For my class Mastering Influence and Persuasion with Zoe Chance, I had to complete an empathy challenge, where I had to listen to someone who disagrees with my views on a topic that is important to me. I care about sustainable fashion, and I feel strongly that buying better goods isn’t actually that helpful; we all need to learn to buy less. Sherry Liu, a GBS student who also has a background in fashion, agreed to share her own contradictory views. The point of this assignment is to avoid going into a defensive mode and listen deeply to other people’s positions, so that ultimately you can be more persuasive.
While we were talking, I spotted A.J. Roy, a classmate from my first year at SOM who now works at BCG and was back on campus for recruiting programming. It was great to catch up with him.
3:30 p.m.
After I took the application test I’d been preparing for, I walked down Hillhouse Avenue and called my sister in India. When I got to Beinecke Plaza, I decided to finish my work outside in the fresh air.
5:00 p.m.
I ended the afternoon with an ice cream social hosted by the Office of Community Engagement and Dialogue. I met my friend and neighbor Ashutosh Bakre and got a scoop of every flavor.
It’s been a lot easier than I thought it would be to return to SOM and integrate into a new MBA class. I live near a lot of SOM students, and I’ve also met people through the South Asia Club, Out of Office, and Women in Management.
7:00 p.m.
After the ice cream social, Ashutosh and I headed to the SOM backyard to wait for our friends to finish class. A couple other friends saw us chatting and winding down, and came to join us. Once everyone was done for the day, we went to the Tech Club social at East Rock Brewery and ate pizza from One 6 Three, one of my favorite spots in East Rock.
