Vedant Gupta is a first-year student at MSU. He is the president of Global Kid Media. Follow him across social media at @globalkidmedia and his website www.globalkidmedia.com. The book, "Global Kid Media – A kid entrepreneur’s time-traveling journey," is available via the website or directly from Amazon at this link: "Global Kid Media - A kid entrepreneur's time-traveling journey."
Before coming to MSU to study business, I had a little bit of a… different background. While I took 11 AP classes over my 4 years, I didn’t always get straight A’s. Between middle school and high school, I ended up missing about 100 days. Why?
Outside of school, I was running a celebrity media company called Global Kid Media, which I started when I was 11 years old. Through that company, I interviewed over 2,000 celebrities in sports and entertainment, including Magic Johnson, Coach Tom Izzo, Draymond Green, Snoop Dogg, Deion Sanders, Patrick Mahomes and so many more. I spent 2 years writing a book about my journey and published it at the beginning of 2024. Since then, I have sold 600 copies over the past year, with support from Pistons owner Tom Gores and the Tom Gores Foundation.. I call this whole journey my real-world education.
Though I graduated with gold chords and had a 3.6 GPA while playing sports every single season since 6th grade, I was rejected from 17 out of 18 schools that I applied to. Michigan State University was the only school that seemed to value my real-world education just as much as my academics.
So far, in my first year at Michigan State, I have seen a lot of opportunities to grow as a student and as a businessperson. It started when I was a member of the Summer Business Institute through the Multicultural Business Programs and the Eli Broad College of Business. SBI happened a month before school even started. Over this one week, I had a chance to network and learn from corporate businesspeople and MSU alumni at Fortune 500 companies. I was placed in a group with a few other students, and at the end of the week, we presented our case study that we had worked on all week.
Through SBI, I enrolled in BUS 104, which was a one-semester class where we learned even more business skills and engaged in activities (which included another case study at the end of the semester). MBP not only allowed me to learn more about business skills and relationships, but it also allowed me to connect and collaborate with many future businesspeople.
With these connections, I was able to join the director’s board of a new committee called Spartans Providing Advantages Resources & Knowledge. This is a peer-led program that fosters belonging and inclusiveness among students. Joining SPARK has given me more exposure to leadership roles and further innovation.
Coming into MSU, I didn’t know what to expect. However, before I even got on campus, I was exposed to so many different opportunities. Just through networking and building connections, I was able to find more and more opportunities. All these opportunities helped me develop into a better entrepreneur, speaker and author.
So far at MSU, I have about a 3.9 GPA and have been involved in different initiatives and organizations. Outside of school, I have continued to be involved in book sales and speaking opportunities. Off campus this school year, I have spoken at the Next-Gen Youth high school entrepreneurship conference as a keynote speaker in Flint, MI. I was also invited to Grand Rapids, where I spoke at the MASA Michigan Superintendents conference as the 30-minute keynote about a month ago.
Right now, I am working to sell my book with the Student Made MSU team. I also currently work as a Strategic Support Assistant at Jackson National Life. This was an opportunity I got through networking at a career fair that MSU offered. MSU always promoting how the University supports its students is great. So, I'm very grateful that the MSU community including students, professors, and student clubs are supporting me by buying my book and hiring me to speak.
This content originally appeared on the MSU Today's website.