How One CUNY school helped a Caribbean student prepare for career success

He grew up in Richmond Hill, Queens, on Liberty Avenue with most of the other Guyanese kids in New York. One thing people would be surprised to know about him is that he’s an only child, though a lot of people usually think he has a sister or a younger sibling.

He sees his mother, Ramwattie Rajkumar, and his father, Lakshmi Rajkumar, as the people who’ve had the greatest impact on his life.

“I saw how hard my mom worked — with two jobs averaging 70-80 hours a week,” he explained. “As her only son, I know I don’t have an excuse to be lazy, as that would be wasting all the opportunities she and my dad gave me by coming to this country.”

He added that because of his parents’ care for him, they have given him the opportunity to go to Queens College (QC), City University of New York (CUNY), where he graduated with dual degrees in finance and economics, as well as a full-time job.

In middle school, Rajkumar was in a program called Virtua Enterprise, which taught him about the stock market and economics. All that he learned, he carried through high school, then college, leading him to pursue the degrees he did.

At QC and CUNY in general, he was extremely involved in student activities. For example, he joined the Queens College Student Association, the student government, in 2021 as a freshman. He held every title and position, all the way up until the end of his tenure on May 28, 2026, where he gave his commencement speech as the graduating president of the student body. 

“I served in two main roles at the college: one as the primary expert on business, finance, and accounting recruiting and the other as the largest authority on student life and programming,” he said. “From 2022 to 2025, I created a new resume template that was used by over 15,000 students, helped facilitate hundreds of students in mock interviews, and assisted with application processes to help land over 300 opportunities at unique companies. In my last year as president, I helped host philanthropy events for women, minorities, and various civic engagements, recreational events such as carnivals which are the largest in CUNY’s 26 campuses, and I hosted career fairs and developed a national level career summit with over 500 people and over 18 employers from Fortune 500s.”

Rajkumar said he was very involved in career development across many national organizations with chapters at QC, such as the Association of Latino Professionals For America (ALPFA), the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA), and Ascend, which helped land an internship at Wells Fargo.

Prior to landing his internship there, he had previously worked with Bloomberg, Blackstone, and the New York State Assembly. 

Once he completed his internship, Rajkumar continued thinking more about full-time jobs. Soon after, he went to a convention as part of ALPFA where he had 10 hours of interviews for three consecutive days for various companies such as PNC, BNY, Deloitte, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. He ended up choosing Wells Fargo again after three rounds. 

Now that he’s graduated from QC, he is looking forward to moving out by himself and moving into his new place when he arrives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he’ll work at Wells Fargo. 

Rajkumar wants younger kids to know that it’s important to be relentless in their passions, make real friends, and to be themselves authentically.  

“It can be challenging growing up or moving to a place where you and or your parents may not be fully accustomed to, but never forget that there’s always an opportunity out there. If you are fortunate enough to have parents or guardians that are sacrificing for you to go to school, playing sports, or giving you time, do not waste that chance to be great,” he continued.