The Northwestern School of Thought

Posted on Thursday, June 22, 2023

Priya Suresh Swaroop ’11, ’18 MBA and Amit Swaroop ’10 were both drawn to Northwestern University for the same reasons—a strong curriculum, intellectually stimulating extracurriculars, and terrific faculty. They were swayed by how lovely the Evanston campus looked during spring when visiting for the first time. According to Amit, “With a private beach, the lakefront, and lovely weather, Northwestern had it all!” Winter eventually brought a reality check, but their dedication to the University never wavered.

Amit also had family connections to the campus. His father immigrated from India to join the PhD program in economics in 1982, and his mother took classes at Northwestern during that time. His sister recently completed her MBA at the Kellogg School of Management. “We’re all Wildcats at heart, and Northwestern has been good to our family,” Amit says.

Although the couple overlapped at Northwestern for three years, and later found out they had many mutual friends, they did not meet until after Priya’s 2011 graduation. Today, Priya and Amit are married and live in the Washington, DC, area with their young son, Sahil. Priya works for PricewaterhouseCoopers as a human capital consultant, and Amit is a Principal in private equity investing. They both say they learned skills at Northwestern that helped them achieve professional success today.

Amit credits Northwestern and the mathematical methods in the social sciences (MMSS) program with “teaching [him] how to think.” He continues: “I joined the MMSS program as a sophomore and enjoyed the rigors of the quantitative and mathematical approaches being applied to the social sciences. Courses like game theory helped me learn how to think differently and proactively, which continued to aid me in my professional career.”

Additionally, Amit says that the Kellogg undergraduate certificate program provided great finance training for his first job in investment banking. “I also made lifelong friendships in MMSS and the Kellogg undergraduate program, and many of my friends work in the same industry,” he says.

When Priya arrived at Northwestern, she was “looking for a broad-based social science major and wanted to better understand the people side of business.” She gravitated toward the School of Education and Social Policy’s learning and organizational change program, which fostered her interest in human capital consulting and human resources. She returned in 2018 to obtain her master’s in business administration from Kellogg. “I loved Northwestern so much,” she says. “I was excited to come back for my MBA and continue to expand my network while taking advantage of all that the larger Northwestern community had to offer.”

Gold-level NU Loyal members, Priya and Amit support a variety of areas across the University, but the nearest and dearest to their hearts are economics, the MMSS program, and Kellogg. “Northwestern gave us the training, experience, and friendships to tackle the real world,” Priya says.

“The years we spent at Northwestern were developmental for both of us, and the training we received—especially more broadly about how to think—is unmatched.” Priya adds, “We are strong advocates of education and find it important to support causes we care about. We are big believers in paying it forward.”

As for the future, Priya and Amit hope that Northwestern “continues to grow, attract and retain world-class faculty.” And, Amit adds, “if we’re putting together a real wish list, we hope for continued strong performances from our basketball and football teams, which we love supporting! Our son is already a loyal fan, too.”