A graduate student in the Naveen Jindal School of Management is one of six winners of a scholarship offered by a nonprofit organization that helps women thrive in the commercial real estate finance profession.
Riddhima Agarwal, a student in the Master of Science in Finance (STEM) program, is one of six winners of the 2022-2023 RENEW Scholarship Program offered by Real Estate Network Empowering Women (RENEW), Inc. It is the second year in a row that a Jindal School student has won the award. Sine Bueckle, MBA’21, MS’21, won the award in 2021-2022.
“Normally, girls don’t go for such fields as finance or commercial real estate because it is very male-dominated,” Agarwal said. “It takes a very hard decision for a woman to be in it. It is even more male-dominated in India than it is in the U.S.”
In her native country of India, Agarwal was already a chartered accountant — the equivalent of a certified public accountant in the U.S. Since she already had the basics of finance down, she said she wanted to “dig deeper” in graduate school. Although she was accepted to 10 U.S. graduate finance programs, she said she chose the Jindal School because of its high ranking.
The RENEW website states that scholarships are awarded “based upon academic merit, demonstrated interest in Real Estate or Finance, extracurricular and community involvement.” Agarwal’s qualifications and experience checked all those boxes. In addition to maintaining a 3.9 (out of 4) grade-point average, Agarwal is a teaching assistant and is actively involved in finance-related student organizations. In India, she counseled other women on how best to pursue their academic studies and career paths.
Dr. Carolyn Reichert, director of the MS in Finance program at the Jindal School, said Agarwal is deserving of the award because of the way she has conducted herself both in and out of the classroom.
“She’s motivated and professional. She consistently looks for opportunities to develop her knowledge and skills,” Reichert said. “We are really excited that she was able to get this scholarship and hope that more of our students apply for it in the future.”
