Tara Bansal: Thinking About How Things Can Be
Tara Bansal
Hometown: Long Island, New York
Double Major: Public Policy, Global Health
Minor and any certificates: Economics
Clubs/Organizations: Duke Student Government, The Duke Debating Society, Lasya, Men’s Rowing, Quidditch
Any other activities you participated in: Pathways to Prosperity Research Lab (Political Science Department), Honors Thesis
Post-graduation plans: McKinsey & Company, Washington D.C.; International development and social entrepreneurship
What Duke has meant to you: Duke has taught me to think not just about how things are but how they can be. This type of boundless ambition will stay with me.
Tara Bansal is a New York native and Angier B. Duke Scholar who is engaged as a community member, both locally and globally. At Duke, Tara kept busy as president of Duke Student Government, served as vice president of Duke’s internationally competitive Debate Society, was a columnist for the Duke Political Review, a member of Lasya, the Indian classical dance team, and a coxswain for the men’s rowing team. She was also a senator of Academic Affairs and a member of the Quidditch team.
Commencement HomepageTara’s work beyond Duke was no less involved. As a participant in Bass Connections, her work centered around understanding the causes of varying levels of social density across slums in Bangalore, India. She spent her previous summers collecting research data in India, creating distribution strategies for pediatric immunizations in Indonesia with the World Health Organization, and studying abroad at Oxford University.
According to Tara, being this engaged was part of her learning experience. “Being involved on campus in so many different things isn’t just incredibly fun, it's taught me so much more than I could ever learn in the classroom. Every day Duke allowed me to be a dozen people, each incredibly different and learning just as much as the next one. I've found that Duke is genuinely unique in its encouragement of campus involvement, interdisciplinary learning, and global participation.”