05-25-2026
Malaika Ramachandran wanted to stop selling to decision-makers and start thinking like them.
That shift sparked the decision to pursue graduate school. She researched well-respected programs and chose the Daniels School for its reputation. While earning her MS in Human Resource Management, she realized that an MBA would round out her expertise, reshaping how she saw organizations, strategy and people. By blending business fundamentals with deep expertise in workforce strategy, she has built the tools and perspective she needs to shape how companies operate and grow. Read what prompted her to pursue graduate school and earn both degrees.
I was working in sales in the employee benefits space, and somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn't energized by the sales motion itself. As I listened to HR professionals to whom I was selling products, I kept gravitating toward being on the other side of the table. The HR leaders were grappling with genuinely fascinating questions about workforce strategy and treating people as a real business asset rather than a line item. I wanted to understand how they thought and to be credible in that conversation, not just adjacent to it.
Purdue's Human Resource Management program is one of the best in the country, so the decision felt obvious. Beyond the credential, graduate school gave me something I hadn't experienced before: the chance to learn purely because something interested me. Having work experience going in meant I could actually appreciate what I was studying. The professors I learned from are people I'll remember for the rest of my life. That sounds like something sentimental that you say. I mean it.
Learn more about the Human Resource Management program.
I knew I wanted to specialize in HR, and I've always seen myself moving between people, strategy and business operations. I wanted the fluency to do that credibly. The MBA gives me that well-rounded ability to move between the three.
I experienced almost every MBA course differently because of the HR and organizational behavior context I was building in parallel. When I worked through business case studies, I couldn’t help but notice the interpersonal dynamics underlying the business problems. Completing both programs simultaneously meant I was constantly cross-referencing them, and that made both richer.
Other students have also earned both an MBA and MSHRM. Read why Sean Lee saw value in both degrees to help him with his entrepreneurship.
This semester, I took a case-based course with Professor Matthew Lynall that pushed me to evaluate businesses from every angle simultaneously: financial performance, value creation and competitive viability. I'd be working through a company's strategy using financial and market frameworks, while simultaneously asking whether the leadership team and organizational structure could actually execute what looked good on paper. Those two reads almost always told different stories. The HR lens gave me the instincts to ask that question. The MBA gave me the vocabulary and rigor to answer it.
If you would like to receive more information about pursuing a business master’s at the Mitch Daniels School of Business, please fill out the form and a program specialist will be in touch!
