Kkhush Aggarwal MSEL’23 on the Power of the Graduate Community
Being surrounded by like-minded problem solvers inspired Kkhush Aggarwal MSEL’23 to take risks, lean into challenges, and embrace all of the practical experience that Babson College provides while earning his Master of Science in Management and Entrepreneurial Leadership degree.
During his nine months in the program, Aggarwal has embraced the Babson community and immersed himself in all that the College has to offer, from studying abroad in Spain to joining and leading several clubs and organizations, including the Graduate Student Council as vice president of his cohort, co-founder of the Art & Craft Club, the Babson India Club, the Global Entrepreneurial Leadership (GEL) Forum committee, and the Leadership Lab, among others.
“I don’t know if I was the lucky one or every cohort is like this, but I found an absolute sense of belonging with them,” Aggarwal said. “The trust they put in me … irrespective of whether things went well or not, the cohort was there to support me. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of peers.”
His peers—along with the rest of the selection committee composed of faculty, administrators, and students—helped select Aggarwal as the graduate speaker at Babson College’s Commencement ceremonies May 13.
For Aggarwal, this opportunity is an honor he has thought about since the day he got accepted into the program.
“The day I got my acceptance email, I looked up who became the Commencement speaker for the Class of 2022,” Aggarwal said. “I remember telling Jhanna Fields MSEL’22, last year’s Commencement speaker, how much I loved her speech, and now after a year, I got to text her and tell her, ‘OK, it’s my turn now.’”
Learning Through Action
Aggarwal’s desire to learn outside the classroom as much as possible helped him thrive in every community he became a part of, and ultimately made Babson a prime environment for him to seize opportunities he may not have discovered elsewhere. One example is his latest startup venture that he dreamed up in one of his design thinking classes.
Using design thinking, plus his MSEL course Learning Through Entrepreneurial Action, and the Weissman Foundry’s resources that helped him design and build his prototype, Aggarwal got the foundation of his startup primed and ready. For the past six months, he has been working on validating the Super Better Spreader, a kitchen accessory that solves the problem of softening, spreading, and consuming any highly viscous edible in a matter of seconds—for example, refrigerated butter, natural peanut butter, or a not-quite-ready-to-eat avocado. Now, he has since moved into the design and development stage.
“I don’t know if I was the lucky one or every cohort is like this, but I found an absolute sense of belonging with them. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of peers.”
Kkhush Aggarwal MSEL’23
Poised to graduate with the Class of 2023, Aggarwal is eager to continue pursuing his venture while working full-time in the Greater Boston Area. He is currently deciding between two job offers in production and inventory management.
While he is going to miss the daily challenges of his MSEL courses and the constant contact with the graduate community, perhaps what he’ll miss most of all is Olin Hall, the home of Babson’s F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.
“Olin Hall was my place to de-stress,” Aggarwal said. “I felt very safe there; it was a place that got me back to my senses after long days. Whatever I’ve achieved, a major part of that has been done in Olin Hall. Any event I helped organize, any classes I attended, any friends that I made—the foundation is all there.”
Looking ahead to what’s next, Aggarwal is first excited to deliver the Commencement address to his class, and then he is eager to live in the present and thrive in the unknown, a lesson Babson has taught him to embrace with confidence.
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