Meenakshi Rajeev is using her undergraduate math background to help her find her place at Daniels.
Meenakshi Rajeev
When she was in high school, Meenakshi Rajeev wasn’t sure what her career path would look like. She knew she loved solving problems, but it wasn’t until she met a particular teacher that she really put two and two together.
“You could tell she was passionate about mathematics with the way she taught students, and she was also a very no-nonsense kind of teacher,” Rajeev said. “It made me go in this track where I was getting good grades, and I also wanted to impress her. Her passion really resonated with me. With other teachers, it almost felt like they were just there to do their job. But with her, it was like she really wanted the students to understand the concepts and really wanted the students to like math too.”
That influence changed the direction of Rajeev’s life. She earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics in her native Kerala, India, before moving to Colorado and enrolling at the Daniels College of Business, where she’s working toward her Master of Science in Business Analytics. She said she was drawn to this program because it created a perfect harmony of her primary interests and goals.
Initially, Rajeev was concerned it would be difficult to find community and financially manage the busy life of a grad student. She joined the Daniels Beyond Borders club, which helped her quickly cultivate a group of students dedicated to supporting each other, and then got to work applying for part-time positions.
“I really quickly realized that just relying on money from home would not be a sustainable way to live here, and I really wanted my own source of income,” she said. “I was looking through jobs, and I saw a job as a tutor at the University’s Math Center, where undergrads could come to seek help with their homework. I applied for it and I’m lucky to say that I got it.”
Rajeev said that prior to serendipitously coming across the opening, she hadn’t considered using her earlier math experience in her job search and especially hadn’t thought about teaching others. That taught her a valuable lesson she hopes to pass on to other students, and especially international ones.
“During my first few quarters at DU, I used to just randomly apply because I was thought if something lands, it lands,” she noted. “But my advice would be to actually look into a job that matches their background and something that they can actually apply their skills to. There are a lot of opportunities here on campus for anyone, even international students, to apply their skills and maybe even find something that turns out to be a passion.”
Through her role as a math tutor, Rajeev applied concepts and theories that were both familiar and new, including statistics, profit, cost and revenue. She also had the opportunity to practice some of the same approaches that her former math teacher used to not only help her learn but also cultivate a love of math.
By conveying her passion, working hard to make sure students understand tough mathematical concepts and treating her role as more than just a job, she’s helped others tackle countless assignments, prepare for tests and grow in their education.
While she doesn’t see teaching as an immediate career move post-grad, Rajeev said she’d consider teaching high school math one day—“maybe after I retire.”
In the meantime, she’s wrapping up her studies in preparation for a spring graduation and looking forward to what’s next.
“One of my passions is film,” she said. “I want to get into the film production side of business. I think it’s a field that’s becoming more and more popular with things like audience segmentation, where we can use data to calculate what what kind of people will actually use the product that we’re selling.”