My Belk College experience: A small school with big surprises

MBA Ambassador Himanshu Bhatnagar ’25 chronicles his personal journey through the program.

I started my career as an engineer and over time assumed technical leadership roles with progressively higher responsibilities. My expanded responsibilities eventually sparked my interest in business leadership. This interest turned into action when I decided to enroll in an MBA program. I had many apprehensions about starting a part-time degree with a full-time job and family. It was daunting to think about all the areas I did not have experience or knowledge, such as finance and accounting. Yet, I decided to take a leap of faith, which became easier after attending a Belk College information session.

Why I chose Belk College

For me, the decision to pursue an MBA education was not as difficult as choosing a college. As a true engineer, I created a decision matrix in Excel for ratings with all the factors to consider and the weightage of each factor. As I was heading towards an analysis paralysis over my decision to choose a college, I realized the Belk College of Business was the obvious choice. As a Charlotte resident, I can get a world-class education and connect with an international community of present and future business leaders. All this without leaving my home!   

What I expected

I was expecting to attend a lot of boring lectures in large classes with tons of assignments. I was bracing for the courses that required a lot of basic learning on my own before I could understand the lectures. I was worried about a cutthroat competitive environment of perform or fail. I was prepared to suspend all vacations and travel to cope with the grueling demand.

How wrong I was! I had not experienced a small school environment as I had done all my studies including my doctoral degree from very large institutions. A smaller school made all the difference in the world.

What surprised me

As I tepidly started my first semester, I received such warmth and support from everyone at the college. Whether it was my academic advisor answering my umpteen questions or the administrative staff helping me complete all the paperwork, their focus on my success was heart-warming. The lectures were anything but boring. We worked on real-world examples, many of which were local Charlotte case studies. The content was extremely self-contained and all the information needed was included in the course material.

To my surprise, I was able to handle the coursework without sacrificing much of my travels or vacations. During my year at Belk College, I have been able to accommodate multiple domestic and international trips for work as well as travel to the Himalayas and the Taj Mahal on vacation.

I was most surprised by the robust networking and career development infrastructure at Belk College. Within one semester, my inbox was full of job and internship opportunities. There were more networking events available than I was able to attend. One of the highlights was getting personally connected with the CEO of Bojangles, Jose Armario, and receiving  career advice from him at one of the networking events.