Hey! My name is Nikhil Devnani and I’m a rising Junior at the Wharton School. I intend to concentrate in Finance and Operations, though that may change in the coming semesters. A week and a half of stressful reading days and four finals later, I find myself relaxing at home, in Dubai, catching up on all the sleep, quality food and family time I missed over the semester. But this is just the beginning of what should be a summer filled with great adventure, learning and challenges!

In about a week I will be flying to Chennai to work with IRCS alongside Leah, a fellow Whartonite. As someone who has dabbled in the field of microfinance in high school and as a college freshman, I’m excited to be in the thick of things this summer. From the research I’ve done on the company and the conversations we’ve had with our supervisors, it’s apparent that IRCS is implementing a newer, more thorough and, hopefully, more impactful microfinance model, which will be really great to see in action. In fact, we will be traveling to a project site in north India for a week to get a good understanding of how IRCS actually works on the ground level.

Although I’ve been to India on several occasions, this will be my first time living there without family and in an entirely new city at that. I’ve never spent much time down south and so I’m both excited and nervous to see what it’s like. While India is not the easiest country to live in, I’m happy to be doing something that will incorporate my academic interests with the chance to positively impact poor communities in my own country.

I suppose what I’m looking forward to most is to see how much I can accomplish in my 10 weeks there. This will be my first real exposure to the working world, and it seems like both Leah and I will get to contribute to IRCS, and take on interesting and challenging projects. I’m curious to see how I grow and develop when I’m there! Oh, and I also really want to go see Pondicherry.