A Year of Academics, Work, and Projects at NYU
"Do what feels like play to you, but work to others." ~ Naval Ravikant
I came to New York City on Aug 18, 2024, and started my coursework at NYU on Sep 3, 2024, exactly a year ago. Looking back at this journey, I feel proud of how far I’ve come. Of course, I still have a long way to go to achieve my dreams, but here’s a small attempt to share everything I’ve worked hard for over the past year.
Check out my personal website at www.sohanjoshi.co
Coursework
I have completed two semesters of my coursework with 18 credits, i.e. 6 courses, with a 3.45/4 GPA, with a specialization in Business Design alongside my major in Technology Management at NYU. My coursework includes:
Economics and Strategy: a core course that gave me a foundational understanding of the economics of a business, how value creation and new economies emerge as technological innovation progresses, how macro and microeconomics govern industries and companies, and how value is created and captured. Taught by Professor Pavlos Mourdoukoutas.
Global Innovation: a core course that helped me understand how startups and companies adapt, manage, and grow through different technological innovation cycles, from the internet to the cloud to AI and now AI agents. Taught by Professor Michael Driscoll.
Financial Analysis: a core course that exposed me to financial modeling and different aspects of a company. This course picked my brain because it involved applying mathematical concepts and changed my view on money, the value of time, perception of debt, and financing a company through debt, equity, or a mix of both. It also included a brief introduction to venture capital. Taught by Professor William Segal.
Design Strategy: an elective that fundamentally increased my understanding of tech product strategy. Based on books such as Blue Ocean Strategy, Hamilton Helmer’s 7 Powers, and Playing to Win, this 12-week course covered analytical thinking, systems thinking, and human-centered design thinking to build and launch tech products. I used these frameworks to design my YouTube channel and grow it quickly. Taught by Professor Sam and Professor Sean.
Design Innovation with AI & ML: an elective that gave me a deeper understanding of building technical products using AI and ML. It focused on how to ideate technically by understanding capabilities, frameworks, and limitations, and map them to user pain points and solutions through a hands-on project. Taught by Professor Graham Dove, this course gave me a detailed understanding of the product layer of technology.
Marketing: a course taught by Professor Pham that included guest speakers from New York City, including communication coaches, CMOs, CEOs, and venture capitalists. Each session offered real-world case studies of marketing problems and solutions, and every class ended with a core marketing concept to help us understand how real-world companies face and solve marketing challenges.
YouTube
Launched and scaled my YouTube channel to 1.06K+ subscribers, with 22 videos, 40,000 views, and 1600+ watch hours in just 30 weeks by doing everything myself end to end: content strategy, writing, editing, design, marketing, and distribution.
NYU Product Management Club
Started as a Graduate Representative at NYU Product Management Club (NYUPMC) in Fall 2024, the only NYU club that builds and supports product management culture across undergrads, grads, and MBAs from 15+ NYU schools. Organized 4 events featuring 10 PM panelists across 7 industries, raised $1200+ in sponsorships from 4 NYU organizations, and attracted 250+ students in Spring 2025. I was the only graduate student and the only student from NYU Tandon School of Engineering in the club. Now stepping up as Director of Graduate Engagement this fall to scale our impact even further.
University Job
Covered every single dollar of my living expenses in New York from day one through my university job as the Graduate Assistant at the NYU Tandon Computer Science and Engineering Dept, running operations and logistics for 1000+ undergrad students’ exams each time for seven cycles, and managing administrative tasks and data for the department across Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Summer 2025, and now Fall 2025. These jobs renew every 4 months at NYU on a performance basis, and mine has been renewed 4 times in a row.
Community Impact
Mentored and guided 80+ incoming and aspiring international graduate students completely free of cost by opening my calendar to solve their queries about studying abroad in the US, from selecting universities, majors, and courses to specific questions about Technology Management program at NYU, by sharing my experiences, processes, and learnings to help them navigate their own journeys.
Attempting to Build an AI Co-Pilot at NYU E-Cell
With Dheeraj, got selected as 1 of 15 teams out of 100+ teams at the NYU Entrepreneurship Cell’s Fall 2024 Startup Bootcamp, where we learned and implemented the design thinking process to build a voice AI co-pilot for creators (writers and YouTubers) to go from ideation to first draft in minutes. Made plenty of mistakes (will share them soon), but learned about:
Design thinking process for entrepreneurs.
Roles of a CTO and CEO while building a startup.
Market research for tech products : qualitative and quantitative.
Translating user problems into actionable insights for engineering, design, and marketing teams.
Iterating on ideas based on user research and insights, building MVPs, and refining them simultaneously.
Independent Research Projects
How Fast Startups Hit $1M ARR: Trajectories of AI vs Non-AI Companies
An independent research project inspired by my Design Strategy coursework and Lenny Rachitsky’s #1 business newsletter on Substack with 1M+ subscribers (whom I cold-emailed for guidance on this project!), where I analyzed 70+ AI and non-AI startups over 25+ years across three parameters: founding year, launch year, and time to $1M ARR, mapping 30 with public data into a detailed report and visual chart to uncover patterns and insights.Market Opportunity Analysis: AI Video Marketing in Real Estate
An independent market analysis project evaluating the US real estate market opportunity for AI tools in video marketing, combining public data, industry reports, and 10+ user interviews into a SAM/TAM analysis based on my NYU Design Strategy coursework and 4+ years of experience as a content creator.
Tech Events In New York City
Attended dozens of tech events, conferences, and office tours including Nasdaq, IBM, Google, and Meta’s New York offices. Gained valuable exposure to the talent density of New York City while becoming a part of it. Watch : video 1, video 2 and video 3.
Building Relationships in New York City
List includes : Sahil Bloom, Andrew Yeung, Lenny Rachitsky, Aishwarya Srinivasan, Nathan Barry, Matt Schnuck, Aadit Sheth, Justin Welsh, Alex Wieckowski, Ishan Sharma, Charles Odei, Jacob Solano, Pratik Ratadiya, Shaurya Sethi, Vedant Maheshwari, Jason Antao, Soham Kulkarni, Ricky Palaguachi, Sahil Lalani, and many others. Some have become good friends, some I’ve met just once, and some I know in a professional capacity.
Fulfilled My Childhood Dreams
Calling New York City home (I grew up on Marvel movies)
Experiencing Hans Zimmer’s live concert
Experiencing Marvel’s Infinity Saga live concert
Watching Michael Jackson’s Broadway show
Buying the latest iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods with my own money
Moving to Manhattan and living like Peter Parker (I grew up watching Spider-Man!)
Watching a Marvel movie set in New York while actually being in New York (Fantastic Four : First Steps)
And the list goes on, but these were the highlights. Be it through tech events, meeting incredible people, or fulfilling my childhood dreams, I’ve truly lived and breathed New York City this past year. This city turned a boy into a man, and for that, I’ll be forever grateful. No matter where in the world I go next, or even if I stay here, New York City will always hold a special place in my heart :)
More details and plans for fall 2025 (semester 3) in the next newsletter! If you like this one,
Awesome herooo!!💯💯💯✅