How long have you been with HEAG?
I started my first consulting position with HEAG last month.
Tell us a little about yourself.
My parents migrated from India to the US when I was 11 years old. We initially moved to Michigan, and it was quite the experience as I had never seen snow and didn’t own a winter jacket. I lived in Michigan through high school and then attended Loma Linda University in California.
While attending college, I was a federal work study student in the financial aid office and did a lot of front office customer service work, including assisting students with filling out FASFAs and answering their financial aid questions. I also performed a lot of technical work – setting up different types of software required by the Department of Education such as EDExpress and EDconnect, writing reports and working with the IT department to make sure everything ran smoothly.
Tell us about your professional career.
After graduating from college, I worked as a Financial Aid Counselor for my alma mater for four years and was the functional team lead for Banner before moving to Northern California where I took a position with Heald College. I spent eight years at Heald in various roles, including Senior Financial Services Specialist, Senior PeopleSoft Specialist, Senior Financial Aid Systems Administrator and Regional Director of Financial Aid. In these roles, I traveled to the college’s 14 campuses and trained staff on technical systems, federal regulations and various financial aid topics.
When I was at Heald, the college used a homegrown system and developed their own FA modules. Each time a new module was developed, I trained everyone in the financial aid office. The college later implemented PeopleSoft and I became the PeopleSoft lead, working with the FA Directors at all the campuses to determine what was needed in the module – both from a configuration and a functionality standpoint. The college eventually migrated to PowerFAIDS so I had the opportunity to build interfaces between PowerFAIDS and PeopleSoft so we could connect to other departments such as Admissions and Student Records. During the rollout, I handled the implementation and training for each of the college’s campuses.
After eight years at Heald, I decided I wanted to do more with my knowledge and went into consulting. I worked at Oracle for four years as a PeopleSoft Financial Aid Consultant and then took a similar role with Ciber where I worked for five years. I also worked for Huron as a consultant and led a PeopleSoft Campus Community implementation, provided project support with a new PeopleSoft product, Student Financial Planning (Vocado), at a private university in Indiana, and prepared responses to numerous RFPs.
What are some of the FA tasks you have performed and excelled at?
I have excelled at the technical side of financial aid. I did a lot of self-training. I didn’t attend the PeopleSoft University; I read the handbook from cover to cover while I was moonlighting as an overnight secretary at a hospital. I’m very motivated and took the initiative to learn everything about financial aid on my own time, reading the regulations and then passing my knowledge onto my team members and colleagues. In each of my positions, I became the “go-to” person whenever anyone had a question.
What makes HEAG unique or special compared to your work experiences elsewhere?
HEAG is a great resource if I have a question or want to bounce an idea off of someone. I get the benefit of being a consultant while having an organization that I can lean on if needed. With other consulting firms, you are often on your own with no resources, which can make some projects more stressful.
