From Mahabubnagar to MIT

Hyderabad: From Mahabubnagar to Massachusetts, Telangana-based Sucharitha Manyala’s journey has broken glass ceilings of gender discrimination and built bridges for women’s empowerment. A recent graduate in System Design and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she forced her way into a conventionally male-dominated course. Before pursuing a Master’s degree from […]

Hyderabad: From Mahabubnagar to Massachusetts, Telangana-based Sucharitha Manyala’s journey has broken glass ceilings of gender discrimination and built bridges for women’s empowerment. A recent graduate in System Design and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she forced her way into a conventionally male-dominated course.

Before pursuing a Master’s degree from MIT, Sucharitha was working as a software engineer for a non-profit organisation, Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Florida, USA, where she was involved in designing and developing critical healthcare systems for professionals, patients and cancer researchers.

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To further her skill set and start her own technology company in healthcare, she embarked on a 16-month-long journey which turned out to be an experience of a lifetime. “MIT is known for its engineering excellence and hence was a natural choice. The System Design and Management programme is designed to prepare engineering leaders who could solve complex challenges with innovation,” says Sucharitha.

As some of the best engineers across the world apply for this course, getting admission was a challenge in itself. Luckily, Sucharitha’s work experience coincided with the university’s goal to create maximum impact on the world with each admission. If getting admission was tough, getting through the course was harder as she was juggling university, work and family.

Sucharitha says professors at MIT wanted nothing less than the best from her until the last minute of every semester and that the support from her husband Sashank Pandem was necessary throughout the course. “It was hard for my young son to adjust, he missed me but understood and made sure all his friends in kindergarten knew all about MIT,” she adds.

Reiterating the fact that engineering as a discipline is still male-dominated, especially in leadership positions, she says MIT appreciated the challenges women face in the technology industry but that cannot be said about the outside world. “Women in technology and engineering have to work extra hard compared to men to prove themselves and get into leadership positions. Identifying and mentoring women engineers in organisations and helping them realise their potential is important,” adds Sucharitha.