Just five years into life as a Carleton alum, Ritvik Kar ’19 has a full story of supporting and mentoring young Carls preparing for careers in technology. As a computer science and cinema and media studies double major at Carleton, Kar experienced first hand the power of alumni contributions to our community. During his sophomore year, on a trip funded by Carleton, Kar landed his first internship as a product manager with Mark Hall ’85, who was willing to take a bet on a sophomore with no real work experience. That bet opened more doors than Kar could have imagined, eventually landing him an internship at LinkedIn, where he still works four years later. He is now a product manager and leads the company’s associate product manager program.
Kar is passionate about leveraging his experience to help others, joining the Carleton Careers Alumni Board in 2022. As a board member, he co-created a two-week externship for a dozen Carleton students to learn about the technology industry, work in small teams on real projects, and craft their résumés to present their experiences and skills competitively. Nominators attest to his willingness to always share his story, provide professional guidance, and demonstrate how Carls can apply their liberal arts education.
In addition to the Careers Alumni Board, Kar meets with Carleton students one on one through the Career Center’s CarlsChat (formerly called 30 Minutes) program to share his experiences as a student and how the College prepared him for a career in technology. He has also hosted a Career Center Instagram takeover to show students what a day in the life of a typical employee at LinkedIn looks like. As a student, Kar honed his career-advising and leadership skills as a student career assistant in the Career Center. He was also a peer leader and president of Carleton’s Developers’ Exchange (Dev X).
He and his partner, Nupur Bindal ’19, live in San Francisco with their two cats, Gwen and Juno.