First Draft Summer School

As someone who started the course nervous about coding, Professor Raghu's App Dev I class completely changed my perspective. His clear explanations and patient support during office hours made complex technical concepts click. Through hands-on projects, I was able to confidently build my own website and tool — an experience that proved crucial in landing my PM MBA internship.

Professor Raghu's ability to make technical concepts both approachable and enjoyable made this one of my most valuable courses at Booth. Thanks for helping me discover my technical potential, Professor!

I took Raghu's class back in Spring 2018 and have spent the rest of the time as a PM (mostly at Amazon, now at Brex the past few years). I can't overstate what a huge help and leg up this class was for me to be successful.

I work with engineers all day and the class gave me the basic understanding to have intelligent trade-off discussions on how we build our products. Without it, I would've been just another MBA PM without any technical skills 😂 It really is something I look back on and constantly use, and I'm so glad I took the class!

Absolutely loved the Application Development course I took at Chicago Booth. Prof Raghu and team are extremely helpful and very generous with their time. Prior to Booth, I used to work at Bain & Company as a senior manager in the technology practice. Personally for me, the course really helped me patch up all the missing details between what I read in research reports, articles; in the advice we gave clients; and what I saw in actual products, what clients built, etc.

The course also generated a newfound passion to build my own product and startup. In my current role — customer success and product at a stealth AI startup — I can see the value the course brings during my interactions with customers and the engineering team here. This is a one of a kind course — and I would truly recommend all of you take it.

I loved Raghu's AppDev course. He was a fantastic teacher, and the course taught me a lot about programming as well as the infrastructure and engineering behind the world's most important companies and technologies.

His teaching, and the skills and knowledge I built during the course, were a foundational part of my transition from the corporate world into the world of technology, startups, and Venture Capital.

What stands out most about Raghu isn't just his technical ability, but his commitment to mentorship. He's constantly helping others grow, whether it's students in the classroom or peers in the community. He brings out the best in those around him and leads by example, always learning, always improving, and always lifting others as he climbs.

Raghu's journey is an inspiring reminder of what's possible when passion meets discipline. I'm lucky to have learned with him — and even luckier to continue learning from him.