Outstanding Graduate, Spring 2023
Rahul Kashyap
Raul Kashyap says his most memorable and significant experience in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University is when he found an engineering community that supported and encouraged “students to want to change the world for the better.”
Kashyap believes that the information technology program has prepared him for a career in which he can work with people to design and develop data-driven solutions. He has come to realize that the lifeblood of any organization is information because it allows organizations to visualize relationships between what is happening now and preparing for the future.
Kashyap enjoyed the Fulton Schools’ hands-on approach to teaching engineering. He appreciates the method of “combining the entrepreneurial spirit and practical skills to empower dreamers to become doers.” Working with others to build real-life solutions has helped him be more creative in problem-solving.
In addition to his coursework, Kashyap joined several student organizations, including Cybersecurity Devils, a subgroup of the Nerd Herd club. For the last two years, Kashyap served as president of the club, which has more than 500 members. He says this responsibility gave him an appreciation of team synergy and that as a leader, “you need to help others find their strengths so the team can create more remarkable results.”
“My biggest achievement as president of Cybersecurity Devils was when we partnered with Amazon Web Services to host an AWS Jam that helped students learn more about cloud computing and challenge their cloud skills in a fun competition,” Kashyap says.
Tatiana Walsh, an assistant teaching professor and the program chair for the information technology program, was one of Kashyap’s most influential mentors.
“She is a great mentor who always encouraged me to excel in my academic pursuits, and reminded me that the goal is to learn, not to be perfect,” Kashyap says. “This helped me gain more confidence in my abilities and determine where I can position myself in the real world to take full advantage of my strengths.”
Kashyap is continuing his information technology education in the fall as a graduate student in the Accelerated Master’s degree program. He is interested in learning more about data analytics, which he says is a key driving factor in decision-making.
“As engineers, we are lucky because we get to visualize a path that we want to take and bring the rest of the world along with us to better humanity,” he says. “This impact is what draws me to information technology.”
Kashyap’s long-term goal is to become a data scientist, he says, “to find new ways of capturing and analyzing data that will help build complex data-driven solutions that optimize cost, efficiency and innovation for sectors like health care.”
Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ Spring 2023 class here.