Rajesh Subramanian, a graduating master of science in information management (MSIM) student, has been selected by the Graduate School to be one of only two master’s students from the UW Seattle campus who will serve as gonfaloniers – banner carriers – at the Commencement ceremony on June 15 in CenturyLink Field.
Gonfaloniers are nominated by their program advisors and must exemplify graduate education at the UW: excellence in learning, teaching, mentoring and/or research. They are announced by name as they enter the stadium, featured in the commencement program, and sent to the news media for recognition.
Subramanian came to the iSchool as a graduate student because he was always fascinated with information, even as a computer science undergraduate. He worked for a couple of years in India doing data warehouse programming before deciding to go back to school for a master’s degree.
His criteria for selecting a graduate school included: courses offered, faculty expertise and which companies recruit from the program.
“I would stress the opportunities that the iSchool gives – not just to network with people in your cohort, but to network with people in the industry, professors, and sharing ideas with anyone who is willing to listen,” said Subramanian about his experience in the MSIM program.
After graduation, Subramanian will join KPMG as a risk consultant in their Information Protection and Business Resilience practice, working with businesses to establish plans to protect their critical information assets and business processes. He was an intern at KMPG as part of the MSIM curriculum, where he worked with other iSchool MSIM graduates who are also KPMG consultants.
Consulting appeals to him because it involves working with a variety of companies and situations. “Its client-based interactions: you are talking to the client and you are solving problems with the client as opposed to sitting behind a desk,” says Subramanian.
He will be putting into practice the philosophy he learned at the iSchool: helping people solve information problems by using technology.
Subramanian’s parents are flying to Seattle from their home in Mumbai to attend the ceremony.