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02 Feb 2021, 13:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Being a Woman at Fuqua |
|
One of my favorite stories is Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” for reasons probably different from what the author had intended. I had lived and worked in spaces where sentences too often began with, “Women should do this,” or “A woman cannot.” That story is a reminder to brace myself when someone starts a sentence with, “Women should…” Getting an MBA was an act of positive rebellion. I wanted to, but somehow, I knew I also had to. For me, and for others after. Choosing the right business school was even more pertinent to the success of this ‘rebellion.’ I like to joke that my business school journey would make a perfect entry for, “How not to prepare for business school.” In July of 2018, I made the decision, wrote the GMAT in December, and applied to schools in October. I chose Fuqua for many reasons, the most compelling of which is the Fuqua community. The turning point for me was attending the Women’s Leadership Weekend in November 2018 (which, of course, I found out about and applied to only two hours before the deadline).  Women’s Leadership Weekend, 2018 Of the 150-plus women in attendance that weekend, I had traveled the farthest—all the way from Nigeria. But here was my tribe. I cannot explain in words how that weekend changed my perspective. Right there, I knew that I wanted to be a part of helping women find all the spaces where they belong. I want to push opportunities their way because I believe that awareness is half the battle and providing the support necessary to reach these professional goals was one of my main objectives. It is important for me to fulfill the promises I make to myself. It is doubly vital when those promises involve bettering others. So I knew that I had to be part of the Association of Women in Business (AWIB). AWIB tries to cater to the many layers of support that women at Fuqua require, including guiding a community of women, charting international careers and perspectives, conventional and unconventional career paths, male allies and their much-needed support, and much more. In my role as VP of Careers and Mentorship, (with my excellent cabinet) I strive to provide support and opportunities across all areas, but with a focus on emphasizing and uplifting non-traditional roles and careers. Some of our biggest challenges have been getting people to realize that AWIB is another touchpoint for career opportunities, actively curating opportunities and events beyond the most commonly pursued career paths, and utilizing the network built over the years outside the U.S. The goal is to consistently demonstrate that AWIB encompasses every woman who has shown up to Fuqua, regardless of background, color, proposed career and any other intersectionality. As with everything related to 2020, COVID-19 changed many things. Much of the business school experience is premised on contact and communication, usually in person. It became more important than ever to innovate and be dynamic in creating events and opportunities up to par or even better than what we experienced, pre-COVID. It was hard for the first few months because everyone was Zoomed out! I could now argue that some of the events we held virtually gave us more than what we expected. Maybe because there was a kind of intentionality, resilience and camaraderie that only comes from a sense of having survived, and continuing to survive together. Despite everything, there have been many successes. In 2020, we had more attendees than ever at the Women’s Leadership Weekend because the virtual option broke attendance barriers for women across the world.  Attendees at the 2020 Women’s Leadership Weekend Going forward, this is something we know we have to make room for. More corporate sponsors have shown up and are putting in the work to ensure that women MBAs are aware of all the opportunities available. The Daytime MBA class of 2022 is made up of 46 percent women! Of course, a lot of this has been possible with male allies and allies across multiple groups. Remember my three-month shotgun business school process? Throughout that journey, it was men who pushed me, from school shortlists to essay reviews and recommendation letters. Of course, this is not every woman’s story, but it is mine and that of many others at Fuqua. The role that male allies played in showing up for women and actively placing them in opportunity zones was clear. Here at Fuqua, it is a blessing to say that I do not go around consciously being reminded that I’m a woman. I do not feel that this is erasure or othering, but more an impartial weighing of your experience, opinions and decisions. I’m grateful and thankful that we show up and do what is necessary when it is essential to center women. There will always be more work because the world is evolving, and women-related issues may not stay the same. But here at Fuqua, we’re loudly and actively pushing for the change we want to see. The post Being a Woman at Fuqua appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
04 Feb 2021, 13:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Being a Woman at Fuqua |
|
One of my favorite stories is Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” for reasons probably different from what the author had intended. I had lived and worked in spaces where sentences too often began with, “Women should do this,” or “A woman cannot.” That story is a reminder to brace myself when someone starts a sentence with, “Women should…” Getting an MBA was an act of positive rebellion. I wanted to, but somehow, I knew I also had to. For me, and for others after. Choosing the right business school was even more pertinent to the success of this ‘rebellion.’ I like to joke that my business school journey would make a perfect entry for, “How not to prepare for business school.” In July of 2018, I made the decision, wrote the GMAT in September, and applied to schools in October. I chose Fuqua for many reasons, the most compelling of which is the Fuqua community. The turning point for me was attending the Women’s Leadership Weekend in November 2018 (which, of course, I found out about and applied to only two hours before the deadline). Women’s Leadership Weekend, 2018 Of the 150-plus women in attendance that weekend, I had traveled the farthest—all the way from Nigeria. But here was my tribe. I cannot explain in words how that weekend changed my perspective. Right there, I knew that I wanted to be a part of helping women find all the spaces where they belong. I want to push opportunities their way because I believe that awareness is half the battle and providing the support necessary to reach these professional goals was one of my main objectives. It is important for me to fulfill the promises I make to myself. It is doubly vital when those promises involve bettering others. So I knew that I had to be part of the Association of Women in Business (AWIB). AWIB tries to cater to the many layers of support that women at Fuqua require, including guiding a community of women, charting international careers and perspectives, conventional and unconventional career paths, male allies and their much-needed support, and much more. In my role as VP of Careers and Mentorship, (with my excellent cabinet) I strive to provide support and opportunities across all areas, but with a focus on emphasizing and uplifting non-traditional roles and careers. Some of our biggest challenges have been getting people to realize that AWIB is another touchpoint for career opportunities, actively curating opportunities and events beyond the most commonly pursued career paths, and utilizing the network built over the years outside the U.S. The goal is to consistently demonstrate that AWIB encompasses every woman who has shown up to Fuqua, regardless of background, color, proposed career and any other intersectionality. As with everything related to 2020, COVID-19 changed many things. Much of the business school experience is premised on contact and communication, usually in person. It became more important than ever to innovate and be dynamic in creating events and opportunities up to par or even better than what we experienced, pre-COVID. It was hard for the first few months because everyone was Zoomed out! I could now argue that some of the events we held virtually gave us more than what we expected. Maybe because there was a kind of intentionality, resilience and camaraderie that only comes from a sense of having survived, and continuing to survive together. Despite everything, there have been many successes. In 2020, we had more attendees than ever at the Women’s Leadership Weekend because the virtual option broke attendance barriers for women across the world. Attendees at the 2020 Women’s Leadership Weekend Going forward, this is something we know we have to make room for. More corporate sponsors have shown up and are putting in the work to ensure that women MBAs are aware of all the opportunities available. The Daytime MBA class of 2022 is made up of 46 percent women! Of course, a lot of this has been possible with male allies and allies across multiple groups. Remember my three-month shotgun business school process? Throughout that journey, it was men who pushed me, from school shortlists to essay reviews and recommendation letters. Of course, this is not every woman’s story, but it is mine and that of many others at Fuqua. The role that male allies played in showing up for women and actively placing them in opportunity zones was clear. Here at Fuqua, it is a blessing to say that I do not go around consciously being reminded that I’m a woman. I do not feel that this is erasure or othering, but more an impartial weighing of your experience, opinions and decisions. I’m grateful and thankful that we show up and do what is necessary when it is essential to center women. There will always be more work because the world is evolving, and women-related issues may not stay the same. But here at Fuqua, we’re loudly and actively pushing for the change we want to see. The post Being a Woman at Fuqua appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
12 Feb 2021, 10:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: The Impact of Dr. Kevin White’s Sports Business Class on My Career |
|
Growing up, I knew I wanted to attend schools that placed an equal emphasis on academic and athletic success. Back in 2005, I was lucky enough to have Duke and the U.S. Military Academy both actively recruiting me for a track and field scholarship. The events of September 11th 2001 and the attack on the World Trade Center led me to pursue my undergraduate degree at West Point, with a commission as an officer upon graduation. But I never forgot about Duke or those, “Cameron Crazies.” While a student-athlete at West Point, I would become a Captain of the Army Track and Field Team. I’ve long preferred sprinting short distances and javelin throwing to long distance running. But it was a lesson on marathon running to come later that would serve me well in my ultimate career goal. During my junior year at West Point, I took on an assignment to create my personal BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal…for you non-Jim Collins readers). A BHAG is a bold, powerful, life-changing goal that takes 10 to 30 years of commitment and pushes you to become better each day. My BHAG remains to someday become the athletic director at either Army or Duke. After graduating and serving 10 years as an Army officer, I was selected to return to West Point as an instructor. This program allowed me to pursue an MBA at an institution of my choosing before returning to teach. I knew I wanted to attend a top-tier business school with an elite collegiate athletics program. The fact that Coach Mike Krzyzewski, one of the best coaches in the history of college basketball, was also a West Point graduate was the icing on the cake. As a Fuqua student, I took advantage of the many unique athletic and learning experiences offered. I attended numerous Duke Basketball games (including three Duke vs. North Carolina games). I landed a summer internship with the Duke Athletics Iron Dukes and External Affairs offices. I also co-founded the Fuqua Sports Business Cohort (a student group dedicated to helping MBA students pursue careers in sports business). When I wasn’t taking in leadership lessons from instructors like General Martin Dempsey, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you could find me playing 5-on-5 inside Cameron Indoor Arena against Dean Bill Boulding. On one occasion, I even found myself chatting with Coach K himself, about being a dad of three daughters as well as an Army officer. Thirteen years after deciding on my BHAG, I was sitting in Dr. Kevin White’s Sports Business class learning, “The Brooklyn Theory.” This is a life lesson about pursuing your goals set against the New York City Marathon as an example. Dr. White explained that starting out in the world of sports business is like the start of the race, where 30,000 runners find themselves crossing the Verrazano Bridge. Then you arrive in the first borough of Brooklyn, and you are now running by yourself. There are only two explanations for why you are running by yourself: 1. you lacked the motivation to withstand a career in sports business and you were passed by the crowd, or 2. you put your nose to the grindstone, worked hard, learned from everyone possible and became a valuable commodity for your organization. I’ve also learned that even though you may want to differentiate yourself from the pack, it’s equally important to understand that you never run the race alone. A runner (or athletic director) is only as good as the team they put together. Dr. White’s Sports Business class, the Duke Athletics program and the overall Fuqua experience all helped reinforce the idea that there is immense power in having a diverse team that trusts one another and recognizes that all members play an important role in success. Dr. White made clear that to be a successful athletic director, one must learn how to hire the right people, delegate tasks, and motivate and lead the team towards a common goal of excellence, both on the field and in the classroom. A big part of the Fuqua identity is family. Whether it was eating dinners with other families at Fuqua Fridaysin the Fox Center, taking the family to watch Duke Basketball games, or my daughters experiencing their first authentic Mexican birthday party with one of my international classmates, my family was a key part of my Fuqua experience and success. My continued friendship with Assistant Dean of the Daytime MBA Program Steve Misuraca, whom I first met in an alumni and students vs. faculty 5-on-5 fundraiser basketball game, further solidifies what it means to be a lifelong member of the Fuqua Family. It was an all too common experience to see staff and faculty members showing a genuine and sincere interest in the students.  Me, driving down the basketball court inside Cameron Indoor Arena against my buddy Steve Misuraca After my last sports business class at the end of the semester, Dr. and Mrs. White invited the entire class and their significant others to dinner at their home. That evening was full of great Italian food, amazing wine and even more amazing stories from a career in college athletics. What I remember most about that night was how welcomed Dr. and Mrs. White made all of us feel. I was not surprised upon hearing the news of Dr. White’s retirement that he would continue as an adjunct professor for his Sports Business class. Both Dr. White and Fuqua share a common set of values and a common ability to make you feel like a member of their family.  The Kumlien crew, wearing our Duke colors I won’t be running the New York City Marathon any time soon, but my interactions with Dr. White and the lessons learned in his class have inspired me to embrace hard work, to value diversity and to strive to do my absolute best in each job. Someday, when I blink my eyes and find myself running alone in Brooklyn, I’ll know that I’m exactly where I need to be. The post The Impact of Dr. Kevin White’s Sports Business Class on My Career appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
15 Feb 2021, 15:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Experimenting in Entrepreneurship at Fuqua |
|
I’ve always been somewhat entrepreneurial. As a kid, I was always trying to up my lemonade stand game, from selling homemade soaps and lotions to putting my brother on the corner of our street with his violin. However, my professional journey has been more corporate, as I worked in consulting and tech before Fuqua. I decided to use my two years in business school to learn more about what it’s like to work with smaller companies—especially startups—and try my hand as a founder, experimenting in entrepreneurship. Fuqua has turned out to be the perfect place to do this and start my own venture through New Ventures courses and the Duke Student Founders program. New Ventures Fuqua offers a series of courses called New Ventures (formerly known as the Program for Entrepreneurs, or P4E) that enables students to form teams around business ideas and work on them for credit with regular larger group meetings once a week for two terms. In the first class, Discovery, we learned strategies for identifying areas of need and ideate solutions for them. Coming into Fuqua, I knew that the idea of entrepreneurship was exciting, but I wasn’t brimming with ideas like some of my peers were, so I loved learning how to think more outside the box. The format of the class is part lecture and part team startup formation, and it begins with everyone in the class pitching a problem space they’re interested in working on. I pitched the wedding collaboration space because when I planned my own wedding with my parents and in-laws (since they were the ones paying for it), it was a stressful experience to figure out and manage everyone’s preferences. Three awesome women joined my team and we researched the problem space. Our professor, Aaron Dinin, encouraged us to come up with many potential solutions, from simple ones to completely ridiculous. We learned that even a ridiculous solution could have some value! By the end of the course, my team and I had determined that we had a problem worth solving, and my classmate Denise Kootin-Sanwu and I decided to proceed to the Development course during our second year to try and solve it. In Development, we called our solution Wedzio. Our professor, Jamie Jones, supplemented our experiential learning with lectures on major challenges like how to build a startup financial model and how to test your assumptions, guest speakers such as the founders of Myxx and Maziwa, and the opportunity to pitch to potential investors and advisors. After conducting customer discovery interviews and developing a prototype and landing page, we used a grant from a generous donor to the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to run a Facebook ad campaign to test how expensive customer acquisition would be and whether we were pitching to potential customers in a way that would interest them enough to click. We then learned how to make a pro forma financial model and create fundraising materials like an executive summary and pitch deck, and built each of these for Wedzio. The last piece of the Development class was to write a paper detailing the business plan and determine whether it was worth pursuing in the future. As we had suspected, when we made our financial model we realized that we could not avoid the difficult economics of the wedding industry and the substantial marketing dollars required to get the business off the ground and determined that Wedzio was not worth pursuing further right now. It’s hard to let go of a business idea once you’ve put so much time into it, but although Denise and I won’t be working on it much in the future I’m hopeful that someone out there who needs our solution will still have a chance to stumble across our Wedzio landing page. In the meantime, I’ll be cheering on the businesses started by some of my classmates that have grown during our New Ventures classes. Student Founder Program Alongside the New Ventures courses, I participated in the Duke-wide Student Founder Program, which is essentially a support group for aspiring and current founders. Like New Ventures, it’s a way to learn about entrepreneurship through action and weekly meetings. Unlike New Ventures, it’s not a class, so there’s no academic credit or assignments. Rather, It’s a good place to be vulnerable and authentic with other like-minded students and coaches, without the pressure of getting a grade. My Student Founder Program groups have provided a fantastic opportunity to ask for advice, meet other founders, and develop skills like mind mapping. It’s a great complement to the New Ventures courses. Takeaways from the Experience I may never have taken the time and effort to try building something like Wedzio outside of Fuqua’s New Ventures courses and the Student Founder network, so it was worth it! These courses enhanced my ability to think about how the status quo might be improved, which I expect will help me be a more creative employee in the future. I’ve gotten to meet other awesome student founders, increased my ability to work through ambiguity, and learned how hard it is to start a business, even if you have all the resources of a great university. Additionally, since there is a smaller community of student founders at Fuqua than at some other schools, I feel like I have gotten access to a larger share of resources and made stronger connections with faculty, other founders, and alumni entrepreneurs than I might have elsewhere. Upon graduation I’ll return to the corporate world, bringing with me a new wealth of entrepreneurship-inspired skills. On the side, I will continue advising startups trying to raise their first round of funds or apply for grants. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll be an intrapreneur! The post Experimenting in Entrepreneurship at Fuqua appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
25 Feb 2021, 12:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: How My International Background Prepared Me to Attend Fuqua |
|
Before embarking on business school and then the business world, I was terrified. I expected a cutthroat, profits driven world – not an inclusive community where everyone was nice to each other. I originally wanted to be a therapist, to own my own practice, listen to my patients, and not deal with the stressors of a large stage. Boy was I wrong, and naive! It dawned on me while sitting across from the Fuqua Board of Visitors, that I was in this world now, and I was not terrified. There were nice people who genuinely cared and wanted a better world too. I was present and sharing my experiences with engaged listeners. So, how did I end up here? Growing Up My life was multifaceted before I even knew what that word even meant. I came from an international background. I was born in Nigeria to a professor and, at that time, a school teacher. My parents had four daughters. Our household was multilingual. My father spoke Igbo, Yoruba and English. He and my mother emphasized us speaking English. I was surrounded by a large family on both sides. Inclusion and community were in our blood and ingrained at a very young age. At three years old, my parents received a chance to come to the U.S. and start a new life. We moved in 2001, settling in Philadelphia. My parents hustled to make ends meet and leveraged their network to “make it” and climb the socio-economic ladder. I’m obsessed with my family because they have made me the person I am today. The friends I made in school also came from different countries with diverse faiths and similar values. Most of us went to the largest school in the city, Temple University (TU!), where we embraced other cultures, sexualities, and experiences while living in a city at the cusp of inequality, gentrification and complex cultures. We ate from the halal truck almost daily, listened to dancehall during study breaks, frequented the art museum’s “Rocky Steps,” and danced in the middle of campus. Many of us also had the aspiration to go to graduate school. It was an unspoken expectation that this would be my path as well.  Me with my sisters, at my graduation from Temple University in 2015 Journey to Business School My journey to Fuqua began when I attended my oldest sister’s white coat ceremony at Duke during my senior year of high school. Durham was so serene compared to the concrete of Philadelphia. Her husband also took a break from the MD world and was pursuing his MBA at Fuqua. The serenity and calmness of North Carolina rubbed off on me. Seeing them as my role models motivated me to also want to be at Duke. Though I wasn’t accepted as an undergrad at Duke, I enjoyed the best years of my life at Temple and then ultimately, at Fuqua. At Temple, I traded a psych degree for an economics degree in what you would call a negotiation with my parents (always know your BATNA – Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). Subsequently, I transferred from liberal arts to the business school. The natural progression was to work for a few years and then get my MBA. While working at Vanguard, I noticed everyone was either aspiring to get an advanced degree or already had one. Vanguard encourages and supports many of its employees in attaining degrees. What stood out though, were the experiences of friends who went full-time and how different that was compared to a part-time program. After a few years of working, I realized I missed school. I missed being around academics, and, having an international background, learning about diverse subjects. During the Winter of 2017, I dedicated time to looking at business schools. My criteria were simple – winter temps couldn’t go lower than 40 degrees; there had to be nice people who expanded my perspective; travel was a must; and the provision of access to human capital consulting. Fuqua stood out in so many ways. First, it met my business school criteria. Second, it was the aspiration – the stretch school, the goal school. Having been declined from Duke undergrad, I was wary yet determined. The 25 Random Things essay highlighted that the school was so much more interested in me as a person than as a number. The accessibility to admissions was also another factor. I was introduced to Natasha Gore (a prior admissions officer) on a Monday and was speaking to her on Thursday about Fuqua. We spoke for almost an hour and her warmth was honest. I remember the day I was invited for an interview, I nearly fainted. The interview process felt like the application process. I spent an hour with Brian Clark (C/O ’19), discussing my goals, dreams, regrets and wishes. The emphasis on authentic introspection is beyond incredible. It was not until Blue Devil Weekend (BDW), where I met some amazing people who remain my friends today, that I felt embraced. I knew Fuqua was the place for me. Post-BDW, I genuinely missed my newfound peers. The highlights and memories of my time at Fuqua are extensive. Between first-year student weekend down at Myrtle Beach, sharing laughs at the National Black MBA Association in Houston, being a back-up dancer for fake Britney Spears at the Drag Show (thanks John Finol), screaming at the top of my lungs on stage for Managerial Improv, napping after drinks on the beach in Hawaii, or jumping out of a plane in Namibia; you could say it’s been a wild and exciting ride. This all happened before COVID-19 too!  Celebrating the birthday of one of my Fuqua peers in October of 2019 Even with COVID-19, dancing in silly videos with the MBA Association, intimate wine and game nights, endless socially distanced heart to hearts, hikes, beaches and outdoor picnics, while of course always wearing a mask and keeping six feet apart, my heart has been so full and so content. My favorite memory overall was when we spent many hours on the road in the Namibian deserts, with no cell-phone reception. We shared about our lives before Fuqua, who we were, the things we’ve done and the things we’re looking forward to. I was among future CEOs, entrepreneurs, leaders, movers and shakers. And yet, we were just here – present, together, and enjoying the simplicity of the experience. It was beautiful and powerful. Those experiences are why I chose Fuqua. I was the only one out of our group to jump out of a plane during the trip. I can’t say why I did it, but I felt compelled to do so.  Me after jumping out of a perfectly fine airplane in Namibia in March of 2020 When we were going up, I could feel my stomach at the bottom of the plane and I questioned my own sanity. But for this trip, in this Fuqua journey, this MBA journey, something in me changed. I was more confident and I was more comfortable in taking bold, audacious risks. This Nwaka, in less than one year, was a totally different Nwaka. Then, I jumped. I felt totally free. And I couldn’t wait to tell my peers about it. The post How My International Background Prepared Me to Attend Fuqua appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
26 Feb 2021, 06:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: How My Multi-Cultural Background Prepared Me to Attend Fuqua |
|
Before embarking on business sc hool and then the business world, I was terrified. I expected a cutthroat, profits driven world – not an inclusive community where everyone was nice to each other. I originally wanted to be a therapist, to own my own practice, listen to my patients, and not deal with the stressors of a large stage. Boy was I wrong, and naive! It dawned on me while sitting across from the Fuqua Board of Visitors, that I was in this world now, and I was not terrified. There were nice people who genuinely cared and wanted a better world too. I was present and sharing my experiences with engaged listeners. So, how did I end up here? Growing Up My life was multifaceted before I even knew what that word even meant. I came from a multi-cultural background. I was born in Nigeria to a professor and, at that time, a school teacher. My parents had four daughters. Our household was multilingual. My father spoke Igbo, Yoruba and English. He and my mother emphasized us speaking English. I was surrounded by a large family on both sides. Inclusion and community were in our blood and ingrained at a very young age. At three years old, my parents received a chance to come to the U.S. and start a new life. We moved in 2001, settling in Philadelphia. My parents hustled to make ends meet and leveraged their network to “make it” and climb the socio-economic ladder. I’m obsessed with my family because they have made me the person I am today. The friends I made in school also came from different countries with diverse faiths and similar values. Most of us went to the largest school in the city, Temple University (TU!), where we embraced other cultures, sexualities, and experiences while living in a city at the cusp of inequality, gentrification and complex cultures. We ate from the halal truck almost daily, listened to dancehall during study breaks, frequented the art museum’s “Rocky Steps,” and danced in the middle of campus. Many of us also had the aspiration to go to graduate school. It was an unspoken expectation that this would be my path as well. Me with my sisters, at my graduation from Temple University in 2015 Journey to Business School My journey to Fuqua began when I attended my oldest sister’s white coat ceremony at Duke during my senior year of high school. Durham was so serene compared to the concrete of Philadelphia. Her husband also took a break from the MD world and was pursuing his MBA at Fuqua. The serenity and calmness of North Carolina rubbed off on me. Seeing them as my role models motivated me to also want to be at Duke. Though I wasn’t accepted as an undergrad at Duke, I enjoyed the best years of my life at Temple and then ultimately, at Fuqua. At Temple, I traded a psych degree for an economics degree in what you would call a negotiation with my parents (always know your BATNA – Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). Subsequently, I transferred from liberal arts to the business school. The natural progression was to work for a few years and then get my MBA. While working at Vanguard, I noticed everyone was either aspiring to get an advanced degree or already had one. Vanguard encourages and supports many of its employees in attaining degrees. What stood out though, were the experiences of friends who went full-time and how different that was compared to a part-time program. After a few years of working, I realized I missed school. I missed being around academics, and, having a multi-cultural background, learning about diverse subjects. During the Winter of 2017, I dedicated time to looking at business schools. My criteria were simple – winter temps couldn’t go lower than 40 degrees; there had to be nice people who expanded my perspective; travel was a must; and the provision of access to human capital consulting. Fuqua stood out in so many ways. First, it met my business school criteria. Second, it was the aspiration – the stretch school, the goal school. Having been declined from Duke undergrad, I was wary yet determined. The 25 Random Things essay highlighted that the school was so much more interested in me as a person than as a number. The accessibility to admissions was also another factor. I was introduced to Natasha Gore (a prior admissions officer) on a Monday and was speaking to her on Thursday about Fuqua. We spoke for almost an hour and her warmth was honest. I remember the day I was invited for an interview, I nearly fainted. The interview process felt like the application process. I spent an hour with Brian Clark (C/O ’19), discussing my goals, dreams, regrets and wishes. The emphasis on authentic introspection is beyond incredible. It was not until Blue Devil Weekend (BDW), where I met some amazing people who remain my friends today, that I felt embraced. I knew Fuqua was the place for me. Post-BDW, I genuinely missed my newfound peers. The highlights and memories of my time at Fuqua are extensive. Between first-year student weekend down at Myrtle Beach, sharing laughs at the National Black MBA Association in Houston, being a back-up dancer for fake Britney Spears at the Drag Show (thanks John Finol), screaming at the top of my lungs on stage for Managerial Improv, napping after drinks on the beach in Hawaii, or jumping out of a plane in Namibia; you could say it’s been a wild and exciting ride. This all happened before COVID-19 too! Celebrating the birthday of one of my Fuqua peers in October of 2019 Even with COVID-19, dancing in silly videos with the MBA Association, intimate wine and game nights, endless socially distanced heart to hearts, hikes, beaches and outdoor picnics, while of course always wearing a mask and keeping six feet apart, my heart has been so full and so content. My favorite memory overall was when we spent many hours on the road in the Namibian deserts, with no cell-phone reception. We shared about our lives before Fuqua, who we were, the things we’ve done and the things we’re looking forward to. I was among future CEOs, entrepreneurs, leaders, movers and shakers. And yet, we were just here – present, together, and enjoying the simplicity of the experience. It was beautiful and powerful. Those experiences are why I chose Fuqua. I was the only one out of our group to jump out of a plane during the trip. I can’t say why I did it, but I felt compelled to do so. Me after jumping out of a perfectly fine airplane in Namibia in March of 2020 When we were going up, I could feel my stomach at the bottom of the plane and I questioned my own sanity. But for this trip, in this Fuqua journey, this MBA journey, something in me changed. I was more confident and I was more comfortable in taking bold, audacious risks. This Nwaka, in less than one year, was a totally different Nwaka. Then, I jumped. I felt totally free. And I couldn’t wait to tell my peers about it. The post How My Multi-Cultural Background Prepared Me to Attend Fuqua appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
12 Mar 2021, 15:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: The Fuqua Community is Genuine |
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I began my business school search broadly, looking for a program that stood out. While Fuqua naturally made the shortlist, I’ll admit I was skeptical of the incessant ‘Team Fuqua’ idiom and was curious to discover if the Fuqua community is truly genuine. I had little doubt about making close friends in a tight-knit community. But could that collaborative, team-first mentality really make a difference when it counted? Spoiler alert—I ended up at Fuqua, so I got a front row seat to verify whether ‘Team Fuqua’ was a marketing ploy or an ethos that led to tangible actions once admitted. I quickly learned the latter was true. If you are pursuing one of the industries that recruits early in the program—namely consulting or investment banking—you will begin your networking roller coaster within weeks of starting your formal Fall Term 1 classes in September. This experience can be daunting and competitive. But going through it with your peers can also be a bonding experience. The second-year students generously share their tips and tricks from their own experiences with the process and provide guidelines for success. First-year students prepare by practicing interview questions with their classmates and shuttling back and forth to cities around the country to meet with bankers, often Fuqua alumni. A standout ‘Team Fuqua’ moment came during this rigorous process. Our group was on the verge of moving on from coffee chats (getting to know you conversations) to more standard interview formats. My friend and I were narrowing in on our favorite bank, and had both been passed along to get in touch with a vice president. Like the previous conversations with this firm, it was billed as a, “get-to-know-you,” casual chat. My friend’s conversation came first. He knew that my call with this same potential employer was later that same day. Before I even had a chance to ask him how it went, I got a text explaining that this was not a casual chat, but in actuality a first-round interview. He filled me in on the types of questions he was asked and wished me luck. This gave me ample time to study and prep for the barrage of accounting and finance questions soon to be coming my way. There were limited internship spots and I easily could have been cut had I not prepared accordingly. My classmate and I recognized that in the long-run, the relationships we cultivated would serve a better goal and bring out the best in each of us. As it happened, we both forged on. I was able to offer assistance to him at a later stage in the recruitment process. While seemingly minor, this is one example of why the Fuqua community is truly genuine and fosters a caring atmosphere. It’s this, pay-it-forward mentality that will carry on long after graduation. The post The Fuqua Community is Genuine appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
19 Mar 2021, 11:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: The Rewards and Challenges of Leadership Positions at Fuqua |
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Fuqua is known for being a very student-driven school, which was one of the main reasons I wanted to join this community. In some of my first interactions, I could see the many possibilities for students to be leaders within the Fuqua community. Though these leadership positions would not come without challenges, the potential to make a difference for your peers and the broader community was certainly evident. Taking the responsibility of being a leader at Fuqua is essential to maintaining the Fuqua community which we love so much. You have to remain focused on creating engaging opportunities for people who share the same interests as you, that somehow identify with you , or more broadly to the general community. This can mean the world for many people. Recruiting can be especially hard, as the world is changing (like we’ve experienced this past year). People don’t have a lot of time so it is crucial to have that core group of people that will facilitate professional, academic, social and cultural exchange. Personally, this has also been an incredibly enriching experience for me. Besides enhancing my leadership skills with all the planning and negotiation that goes along with the role, I was also able to make many unique connections with the staff, faculty, other classmates, and my partners. In my case, also taking on some responsibilities at Fuqua made me a much more confident public speaker and helped me to build the courage to take risks that were important for me and for the impact I wanted to make. Of course, you’ll find many challenges that go with leadership along the way. First, pursuing your MBA is one of the moments of life with more opportunities to engage with people. This in turn makes prioritization of duties a problematic task. To tackle that, I always suggest understanding early in the process what are your goals, what you want to take away from each experience, and the kind of impact you wish to make. Also, leading your classmates can sometimes be challenging. But learning how to do that with grace and thoughtfulness will help you to develop the leadership skills required to be a good leader in the business world.  Hosting the first ever Día de los Muertos virtual party; that’s me, top row, second from the left! People usually wonder how much time and dedication a leadership position demands. I would say that it depends on the responsibility of the role, the problems you need to address, and the extension of the impact you want to create. Different moments ask for different levels of commitment for various positions. It is up to you, along with your peers, cabinet members, team members or co-presidents, to create a feasible and actionable plan that will contribute to the Fuqua community. Moreover, taking on the challenges of leadership positions at Fuqua was one of the highlights of my MBA experience. I created new things from scratch and helped other initiatives to keep growing. Along the way, I feel like I connected with people who share my values, expanded my culture to the entire Fuqua community, learned how to be a better leader, and gained a family outside of my home country. And I saw the same thing happening to many other people, as they contributed to the experiences of other classmates, all while building strong relationships. The many leadership opportunities at Fuqua (whether you want to be a club co-president, a career fellow, a COLE fellow, an MBA Association VP, among many other things) are fantastic ways to give back to your community and drive meaningful impact for your classmates. But also, if you allow yourself to expand outside of your comfort zone and learn from the various roles, it will be an incredibly transformational experience and will make you a better leader of consequence! The post The Rewards and Challenges of Leadership Positions at Fuqua appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
02 Apr 2021, 09:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: My Experience with D&I at Fuqua and in the Corporate World |
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Reflecting on my background—my family experiences, friendships and the feeling of belonging—all helped to enable me up for my personal mission in Diversity and Inclusion (D&I). I started my career at the Vanguard group, a $6+ trillion-dollar asset management firm in Malvern, PA. I was in the accelerated leadership development program, with individuals not too different from those at Fuqua —driven, hungry and ready to be CEOs. However, I couldn’t shake off a strange feeling of not belonging. When we were studying for the Series 7 exams, it felt like my peers quickly understood what was going on, that they were smarter and more savvy. They drifted into the city, wore high end brands and described trips and vacations I’d never been on. The community felt hollow and I lacked a sense of belonging. D&I wasn’t a hot topic at the time so I was instructed to simply try harder. It stung. Someone as super cool as I was, feeling left out? I decided I could either continue to wallow and quit or I could do something about it. I chose the latter. My first opportunity in D&I came in the form of supporting our recruiting team by going back to Temple, my undergraduate alma mater, to identify candidates to join the company. I soon began speaking at Temple. I was later asked to plan a full-day for high school students to learn more about opportunities within Vanguard and the financial services industry. This was in partnership with the National Association of Black Accountants. I was addressing a breed of driven high school students, who had no idea a company like Vanguard even existed. Their hope and excitement reminded me of a look I embodied not too long ago.  The National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) Student Day, March of 2016 I invited Crystal Langston (current Vanguard chief diversity officer) to come and guest speak to these students. Crystal was my role model—a Black woman who had ascended at Vanguard and has remained her authentic self. I was soon getting requests to plan this here, liaise there and speak to that group over there. I was eventually invited to participate in one of Vanguard’s early pilots in helping employees understand their roles in inclusion. While continuing my D&I journey at Vanguard, I was also ascending professionally. I became a chief of staff within the high net worth group. In that role, I got to see a $900 billion and 1,000+ employee business from the 30,000-foot view. This became my first experience in making real change from a place of “positional power.”  Me featured in an inclusion video created by Vanguard, August of 2017 I became the youngest, non-senior manager in the division’s Diversity Advancement Committee. I led an effort with our HR business partners to advance mentorship for diverse groups across our sites. Vanguard as a company was also making strides in D&I efforts. In addition to my professional duties, I taught kindergarten as a Sunday school teacher within my Nigerian church. I also sat on a board for a mental health non-profit organization, Daemion Counseling Center, and supported their extensive fundraising events. Both volunteer experiences helped me understanding neurodiversity, and how to work across all levels. My last role at Vanguard was within an enterprise strategic program. We operated as a startup and established my sense of community and my passion for D&I. My last act of inclusion, and something I am still proud of today, was feeling empowered enough to share with my manager that we could benefit from increasing representation within the group. She asked me what I proposed and what I could share. To prime them, I first led the group through an authentic conversation, where we talked about bias and our history, not dissimilar to Fuqua’s Daring Dialogues (which I will discuss a little further down). I created a proposal and strategy for how to best increase representation and partner with the chief diversity office. After leaving Vanguard and Philadelphia for Fuqua, I was invited back for the team holiday party. The group looked and felt increasingly diverse and I was told they had a closer partnership with the chief diversity office. I had never felt so valued and so heard. Coming back as an intern in 2020, I was a participant in Vanguard’s incredible D&I conversations. Teams and leaders were having their own “daring dialogues.” Senior managers were posting in allyship groups. The company was investing heavily in training and speakers. I had a two-hour conversation with one of my first managers, a white man and Army veteran. He shared how he’s striving to be more inclusive and equitable. The results of D&I work were finally coming to fruition. While Vanguard and Philadelphia were safe spaces that accepted me, Fuqua is a school in a southern state I never lived in. I came to business school to expand my perspective. A school like Fuqua that boasts an international student population of almost 40 percent, with 20 percent underrepresented minorities in its full-time MBA program, provided the sense of support and openness I needed. I quickly embraced the Fuqua culture. The second-year students from the Black and Latino MBA Organization (BLMBAO) embraced us. My white counterparts were commenting on how much they wished they saw racial diversity in the school and I was navigating a variety of social circles I never had access to. The highlight of my first year came during my first birthday away from home ever. I hosted my section mates at the Durham Rooftop and over 50 of my peers came out. It felt like a piece of home; different groups of people coming together to celebrate. I was unconsciously starting to piece my Fuqua inclusion journey through these little moments. I attended my first Daring Dialogue in the fall and was instantly enamored with Mary Fernandez’s (the student VP of Diversity and Inclusion for the MBA Association at the time) tenacity and ability to cultivate safe spaces and drive meaningful conversation. Daring Dialogues at Fuqua are discussion circles in which a specific social topic is chosen and a selected group of students share their experiences related to the topic. We talked about race, gender, disabilities, sexual identity, socio-economic status, affinity groups and much more. It’s a space where you truly see Team Fuqua in action. Each participant leaves having learned a bit more about their counterpart’s experiences. These dialogues are the bedrock of the inclusion role. I learned about courage, decisiveness and the experiences of those with disabilities from Mary. She was the one who encouraged me to succeed in her role as VP of Diversity and Inclusion. The VP of Diversity and Inclusion represents the voice of the student body with social issues. I partnered with the Assistant Dean for the Office of Community Engagement and Inclusion, Stephanie Robertson, other diversity clubs, my MBA Association counterparts and students to create programming and content for the student body.  Our MBA Association (student government) D&I cabinet, March of 2020 I have a cabinet of seven rock star peers who support me. My day-to-day has varied given the onset of COVID-19, political/civil/racial unrest, and the election. I planned Fuqua’s inclusion week, hosting Deloitte’s Chief Inclusion Officer. We also had a COVID-19 mental health collaboration with the VP of Health and Wellness ending with an end-of-the-year Fuqua Gratitude toast with the VP of Student Life. When the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor occurred, we hosted a powerful allyship session over the summer with over 170 staff, faculty and students in attendance. This was the catalyst for our classmates to have these conversations. The energy was palpable. During my summer internship, I witnessed Vanguard grappling with the same issues Fuqua was facing, regarding how to address social unrest. It was such a weird experience being so immersed in D&I for my day-to-day at both the academic and corporate level. The worlds were blurred and I lived and breathed social issues. Compared to what I witnessed from other schools and institutions over the summer, Fuqua was way ahead in listening to students and addressing institutional issues. I was able to sit in conversations with Dean Bill Boulding and share perspectives on the Black experience within the MBA. I worked with our VP of Academics on bringing Daring Dialogues to first-year orientation, while supporting the VP of International in thinking through global student support. I also partnered with the Gender Equity Working Group on bringing implicit bias training to the 800+ member student body. I spent 18 hours hunkered in a team room delivering training to our classmates while planning out the D&I strategy and calendar of events for the upcoming academic year. I was on calls with my counterparts every single day this summer. Privately, I was de-escalating politically charged dialogue while also building team rapport and attempting to cultivate an inclusive space. All the while, I was sustaining internal peace as I navigated life as an MBA student. My role as the MBA Association VP of D&I has been the most transformational and rewarding role of my life. It has provided me with a perspective I never expected while providing me access to so many different aspects of Fuqua. I found myself in discussions with Fuqua alums who are chief diversity officers, sharing my experiences in different alumni board meetings and laughing over drinks with my teammates. What this role entailed this year is completely different than what one would have experienced the year before or even the year after. I will never forget or devalue this experience. The post My Experience with D&I at Fuqua and in the Corporate World appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
06 Apr 2021, 12:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: How Learning to Lean on My Fuqua Community Made Me A Better Leader |
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The most challenging aspect of my leadership experience was last summer when I felt like I could barely balance life personally and professionally. The first wave of COVID-19 hit, classes were now virtual, my internship had been shortened, and I was grappling with how to build an inclusive community through it all. What I did not share at the time was that I was also going through the process of interviewing for supplemental internships. And given the timing of the economy, I received many rejections. The racial reckoning of the summer of 2020 also left me questioning what it meant to be an African/Black woman in such a space of privilege. So much injustice was happening around the country to people who looked like me and it felt like I was not doing enough. I was wrestling with many internal questions yet still felt like I had to show up for myself, my peers, and my school. I could not afford to quit nor give up. It felt like an undue burden, however, this was leadership. Now was the time to show courage, not to fold. I remember when the MBA Association had a session with General Martin Dempsey and he mentioned that “being a leader is a responsibility that is a privilege, not an entitlement, and one should recognize the weight.” He also said, “the opposite of fragility is also action.” Reflecting on his words made me realize, at that moment in time, it was my responsibility and privilege to lead, to drive, and pave the way. If I didn’t show up, who would? If I didn’t commit, how would we move forward? And if I didn’t fail, how would I learn? I signed up for this, I wanted it, and I would see it through. I consider myself a relatively resilient person, however, this was the time I had to dig my heels in. I reached out to my old connections at Vanguard to see what internship opportunities they had, and fortunately, was provided an internship in a group that was exactly where I wanted to be. With the internship search out of the way, I now had to balance supporting the development of anti-racist inclusion work for both classes at Fuqua while reimagining performance management at Vanguard and leading both academically and professionally. I can’t say I had the easiest summer but the lessons were invaluable. I learned that sometimes you have to just jump right in, fear can be paralyzing but you just have to move forward. You also owe it to the people looking up to you and coming behind you to do your best, especially as a woman of color. Finally, to never ever give up, no matter how much you want to, sometimes the work is too important and bigger than you. Personally, I also learned how to prioritize my mental health better. I said no when I could not support. I pushed back, set boundaries, and claimed my time. Boundaries are extremely important in the D&I/people space because it can be such emotional work. I bought a bike to keep active, took nature walks, prayed, and meditated a lot more. My mental peace is something I actively prioritize. Never in a million years would I have said that I felt like a leader. To be frank, I’ve been a very reluctant leader. The most consistent feedback I’ve received professionally was to speak up more. I am proud of the fact that who I am today is extremely different from who I started out as. I feel more confident, in my voice, in my skin and in myself. I am not afraid to be wrong or challenged. I 100 percent speak up more for the things I believe in. I also recognize I can’t do it all alone. My parents raised my siblings and I to be fiercely independent and I love that. I also should have focused on how my mother and father leaned on others for help. One of my Fuqua team members, Christiana, gave me the direct feedback to lean on the team more. This summer, as I was navigating my internship and the impacts of COVID-19, I had to ask for help. When grappling with complex school issues, I had to lean on my co-president (Mike Treiser) even more. I could not hold myself to the standards of perfection during an extremely imperfect and daunting time. I had to be vulnerable and there was true strength in that. The biggest leadership lesson I’ve learned thus far is how to mobilize a team and play to its strengths. I may be good at marketing, but Becky Mayes is even better. I may be awesome at relationships, but Tanya Panicker is probably ten times better. And that is okay. It’s not a race for adoration or kudos. I think about how well I’m empowering others and giving them the space to do what they do best. As someone who also “reports” into a co-president, I also learned how to step back from always speaking up and to also be a follower. It’s imperative to know when to lead, when to follow, when to make the hard choices, and when to bring others in. I am proud to have made a name for myself here at Fuqua in the Diversity and Inclusion circles. And this is introduced me to countless others. As mentioned, the work is emotionally exhausting. I still waver on if I want to pursue this vocation in a full-time role. However, it is also incredibly rewarding. The people you surround yourself with, who see and embrace the vision, and that help you make the work happen are just as important. I was born in Nigeria, grew up in Philadelphia and cut my teeth in the corporate world of Vanguard. But it was Fuqua that helped me mature. I feel not only prepared but excited for the next chapter. The post How Learning to Lean on My Fuqua Community Made Me A Better Leader appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
23 Apr 2021, 12:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: An Innovative Experience in Fuqua’s New Entrepreneurial Mindset and Action Course |
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The first academic period for first-year MBA students at Fuqua is the Summer Term. It is composed of three courses that allow for the ‘return to school’ experience to be a gradual adaptation as longer and more intensive Fall Term 1 approaches. One course that stood out to me during my Summer Term experience last year was Entrepreneurial Mindset and Action. It was a new course, debuted to our Class 2022, to stimulate us to develop entrepreneurial perspectives and skills through experiential learning activities. The course, taught by Christine Moorman and Manuel Adelino, was designed to equip us to innovate in entrepreneurial ventures as well as established organizations across a wide-ranging set of for-profit and nonprofit industries. Despite not having the goal of creating my own company or considering myself an entrepreneur, I found this class insightful and resourceful for my technology industry career goals. It shifted my mindset, teaching me how to be an entrepreneur within established companies by developing meaningful perspectives to solve essential problems through user-centered and resource-efficient approaches. The course was an excellent introduction to putting our vision into motion and turning our ideas into solutions during our time at Fuqua and beyond. What I enjoyed the most about this course were the experiential exercises. From simulations where we ran our own business to real-life business problems shared by corporate guests, we got to apply the concepts beyond the theoretical knowledge. Despite it being a virtual course due to COVID-19 restrictions, professors were creative and flexible, using multiple platforms that would allow us to actively engage in every single class. They made the most out of the virtual environment by inviting multiple speakers too! We interacted with a broad range of entrepreneurs who shared their ventures alongside insightful advice for all of us.  Part of my team’s presentation for our final project Finally, our main project for the course was to develop a new business model for the podcast industry to compete within our section. Along with my team, we applied the course frameworks, tools, and guiding processes and principles to a real entrepreneurial venture. It challenged us to be disruptive and innovative, which prepared me for my own recruiting for the tech industry later in the year. It made us think outside the box, reimagining a technology such as podcasts despite its already high adoption and maturity. My team won the competition by creating a cooking podcast that combined culinary and travel podcasts with meal kit delivery services. Business today requires talent possessing an innovative spirit combined with the ability to see opportunities, create value, and marshal resources to solve big problems for the benefit of business, customers, and society. This is precisely what you can expect to take away from the Entrepreneurial Mindset and Action course at Fuqua. The post An Innovative Experience in Fuqua’s New Entrepreneurial Mindset and Action Course appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
10 May 2021, 06:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: The Fuqua Community Supported My Consulting Project |
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“Team Fuqua.” Honestly, it kinda sounded like a gimmick before coming here. To my surprise, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’ve personally gotten to experience how Fuqua, its administration, its faculty, and, of course, its students, live out all the paired principles, especially Impactful Stewardship and Supportive Ambition. Impactful Stewardship refers to Fuqua’s desire to create solutions that improve our community both now and in the future, while Supportive Ambition refers to how Fuquans support each other to achieve great things, knowing, “your success is my success.” Let me share! I was fresh off the core marketing class, and had even written a blog on the technological transformation of business class, and I was looking to get some experience before my internship. As I considered what to do, I hoped to combine some of my newly acquired skills from Professor Jordan Etkin with my background in social impact. So, bright eyed and bushy tailed, I reached out to an old colleague, Ryan Berg, who founded the Aruna Project. Aruna is an impact-driven brand that creates lifelong freedom for victims of human trafficking through employment. They train women to become skilled artisans who craft beautiful athleisure products. I asked if they needed help. Ryan talked about how Aruna had a goal of freeing and employing a victim every 10 days throughout the calendar year. They were launching a new line of drawstring bags to their already incredible product line. And women like Priya were going to handcraft them. They had the purpose. They had the strategy. They had the infrastructure. But they needed help with sales and marketing. Aruna wanted to expand into new territory, custom bulk orders, to solidify a second revenue stream. On top of that, they wanted to maximize their general marketing strategy with a limited budget. It was the perfect opportunity for me. Needless to say, I was in! The project has been a blend of marketing, strategy, and entrepreneurship, all with a bit of scrappiness. My marketing course was especially helpful when trying to market the custom bulk orders! It gave me frameworks to consider as we were launching new products; how were we going to promote, what target audience did the product give the most value, etc. There was even a class, within the course, that talked about the marketing and strategy for purpose-driven companies. Talk about Impactful Stewardship! Seeing this content come up in my core marketing class, a class all MBAs must take, made me think Fuqua takes that paired principle seriously. Back to the project. Next, I had to think about Aruna’s general marketing strategy with its limited budget. I needed to get earned media attention. The company has beautiful products. The consumers that bought the bags loved them. But the problem was that so few people actually knew of it.  The bags that the Aruna Project offers, made by women like Priya So, I approached faculty and administration, asking for advice on how to grow brand awareness despite a small budget. Professor Etkin, along with other professors, gave me advice on how to land large partnerships, pursue earned media attention, and prioritize marketing expenditures. On top of that, through programming put on by the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, I got to talk with and learn from social entrepreneurs. The connections and networking have been invaluable. Probably the most astonishing part of it has been that all those people have genuinely taken interest in the project and given advice. They have stayed after class, offered their time, and introduced me to other people. It was clear they believed in Supportive Ambition. They cared about “my project” and gave me a ton of support, seemingly, because they genuinely viewed my success as their success. The best part is that it’s going to help the Aruna Project and contribute to its mission of freeing victims. It turned out “Team Fuqua” is no gimmick. The students, faculty, and administration genuinely care about Team Fuqua and the paired principles. I was proven wrong. I hope that everyone who can relate to my skepticism towards “Team Fuqua” gets the chance to be proven wrong, as well. I’m proud of the Fuqua network. I certainly aspire to live out those same principles and values, as I consult for the Aruna Project and beyond. The post The Fuqua Community Supported My Consulting Project appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
18 May 2021, 11:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Why You Should Pursue Your Passion in Business School |
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I have become the unofficial headshot photographer for Fuqua. This journey has been one of the most fulfilling experiences I have had during my MBA. My love of photography began at 12 years old, and while I never saw myself pursuing photography full time, I did see it as a creative outlet that I wanted to continue to develop because it has taught me so much about myself and others. I spent the summer before Fuqua creating a logo, website and taking on small photography jobs in my free time. I expected photography would be a mutual passion that would allow me to connect with a handful of peers at Fuqua. However, it quickly grew to be much more than that. Within a few weeks of moving to Durham, I was doing about two to three headshots per week. This number quickly ballooned to 15 per week. Aside from being able to do something that I love, photography has allowed me to apply learnings from class within a small business, donate to the Durham community, and connect with classmates. I used Excel functions from our Business Computer Applications course to better organize my accounting files and break-even analysis to determine my pricing strategy and equipment purchases. Early on, I knew that I wanted to donate a portion of proceeds to a local charity and ultimately decided on a 20% donation to the Greater Triangle United Way. The most rewarding part for me was being able to meet so many classmates in person within such a short period. To date, I have done about 80 shoots and have met some of my closest friends during them. I have also had the opportunity to hear hilarious and heartwarming stories from classmates, like Young Song spending his first Thanksgiving in the United States with our mutual friend Luke Blackburn’s family in Kentucky.  Young and Luke, left to right If you have a passion, even if it seems unrelated to business school, pursue it and lean on support from the Fuqua community. This period of our lives is uniquely filled with people pursuing their passions, making it an environment conducive to collaborative learning. My advice is to be attentive to the needs of those around you because your skillset can fill the gap and create a more fulfilling Fuqua experience. The post Why You Should Pursue Your Passion in Business School appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
20 May 2021, 13:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Learning to Try in a Trying Year |
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Reflecting on the sun setting on my time here at Fuqua, it has been delightful to experience the true greenery of North Carolina, the cherry blossom trees, and to see the smiles of peers who have spent the last year isolated indoors. The atmosphere feels different now, with vaccines and impressive management of COVID-19 safety from the Duke end, there is something I see now in so many faces; hope. Hope to make the most of our last weeks, hope to have one more walk, and hope to make one more memory. With this as a backdrop, I caught up with a dear friend, Nathalia Borges , at the JB Duke Hotel. We were supposed to meet for an hour and ended up staying for two hours and thirty minutes. We discussed her home country of Brazil, we covered the pandemic, Nigeria, Fuqua, the U.S., racism, allyship, our experiences, my time taking English as Second Language, and so many other things. When Nathalia shared about her journey here, I was honestly touched. This was someone who could not make it home at the time of lockdown and was experiencing the pandemic in a foreign country, yet found her voice, her will, and courage to lead. I was so curious about how she persevered that I asked her one question, “What kept you going?” Her response was something that resonated with me; that she had to, she just had to try. She saw us in the MBA Association, the administration, and different student leaders making the effort. And for her, just like when I experienced a sense of not fully belonging, she could either wallow or try, and so she tried. Nathalia led summer programmingfor Fuqua during the pandemic, she essentially wore many hats of the MBA Association while also navigating what this experience meant for her and participating in her internship. She was the go-to person last summer and handled it all with grace, poise, and assertiveness. What I thought would just be a simple catch up became the inspiration behind my reflection and speech for our MBA Association awards. The first annual MBA Association “Academy Awards” was created by co-presidents Mike Treiser and Sarah Izzo to thank and honor the cabinet for efforts over the past year. It was also a way to bring both the first and second-year cabinet together with the administration for a night of fun and celebration.  The view from the back row of the MBA Association’s Academy Awards event, April 21, 2021 I definitely felt celebrated and emotional to start the first of many closing ceremonies. Before the event, Sarah asked me to write a speech reflecting on our time. I am not the best speech writer but I do love writing a good story. In thinking of Nathalia’s story and the many stories here at Fuqua, what stands out is that we all try. We tried. We try. We have to make the effort. That’s what keeps Team Fuqua going and that’s what makes the experience transformational. If you don’t lean into it, no matter how challenging or frustrating, the journey becomes only half worth it. Our team made the effort and impacted so many people here and that was what I wanted to convey to them; that it was all worth it. The speech itself centers around a fictional Fuqua student, Olive. Olive, to me, sounded gender neutral but I ended up using the name to describe a woman. I wanted each of us to understand the journey of the Fuqua student that is not a leader but ends up becoming one by nature of making the effort because those around her decided to lean in. Sometimes we are so knee deep in the work we do that we can lose focus of the bigger picture and the overall impact we have. My hope was for each of us to see a little piece of ourselves in Olive; her journey to Fuqua, her experience during the pandemic, her decision to lean in, and the fruits of her labor. Despite the differences in background, country, socio-economic status, gender, etc. that make us so unique, we have more similarities than we know and this experience truly helps us to understand each other.  Me delivering my speech, April 21, 2021 I want to toast to the Olives of the world and to those who keep on working to make a difference in the lives of their peers. It sometimes is not easy, but growth rarely is. Regardless, you are seen, recognized, and celebrated. Keep on doing the good work and cheers to you. Here is my story of Olive and the speech I delivered to my peers: Because of you I’ll start with the story of Olive – Olive can be a man, woman, Black, white, Asian, LatinX etc Olive felt gender neutral but we can debate on that, but today I’ll use Olive in terms of a woman Olive is a Fuqua student She worked really hard to get into Fuqua, she probably spoke to some of you over and over again to connect on GMAT, 25 facts, and interview questions and when she received her acceptance letter, she was so ecstatic, to the point of tears Sometimes we can take this place for granted because we are so used to the day-to-day experience but there was delight within Olive because she was going to THE Fuqua school of business, an elite school that would open many doors for her Olive was terrified but the decision felt right, the people felt right, and the environment felt right I won’t lie, at first it was challenging for Olive – drinking from the firehose academically, figuring out recruiting, and trying to understand how to fit and belong in a space where her peers were so different yet so similar It took some time, many nights at Shooters, Tavern, Fuqua Fridays, and club events, but Olive started to find her voice and also started to cultivate genuine relationships As she found her footing, the pandemic hit and it felt like life was spiraling again The same questions we had, she had How would she cope when her family was so far? How would she survive the isolation? Where would she find her community? What did this mean for her experience? Olive was so heartbroken at the sense of loss and grief in a situation outside of her control Despite this, things started to happen She attended a discussion held by the MBA Association on mental health during Covid-19 She took up CAPs and Blue Devil Cares She went to the weekly trivia nights She took organized walks with her classmates She empathized and found ways to support her international friends who were also experiencing their unique sense of grief and loss She supported and attended all the summer programming events She started getting deeper into learning how to be anti-racist and be an ally She donated to many causes, supported local schools and businesses, and began to compost She spent time thinking through her career options and what life truly meant after Fuqua She embraced the incoming class with open arms and became an orientation daring dialogue facilitator She laughed and looked forward to each of the Fuqua This Week articles, because they brought little pieces of joy and humor in such bleak times She interacted with the MBA Association Instagram page because of their quick and warm responses She attended the donut drop off during finals held by the academics chair She toasted to the things she was grateful for Most especially the Grubhub vouchers She tried and she tried because she had these options She was given these options, despite it all Because of you Because of this team, every day we spent this summer, every meeting we hashed things out, every frustrating GroupMe message we tackled, every phone call at midnight we had, someone like Olive was having a better experience than they expected I recently grabbed dinner a few days ago with an international peer, it was incredible how she felt she embraced her voice, and her accent because she said yes to the opportunities afforded to her through the past year It’s easy to lose sight, it’s easy to lose focus, but ya’ll, we did it, We actually did it I’ve thought a lot about the Olives in our class and the ones who will carry the mantle in our place moving forward Team, you may be tired and your bones weary, but who would ever know the type of impact we would have? I am proud of you, I am thankful for you In a way, I am also Olive, I learned to persevere and to lean on my community I hope you can carry this forward, continue to be the badasses you are meant to be and impact the Olives/Olivers/Olivxs out there You deserve to be celebrated and recognized because despite it all, because of you, this was so worth it Thank you The post Learning to Try in a Trying Year appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
25 May 2021, 11:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: 3 Ways Fuqua Prepared Me for a Career in Consulting |
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I came to business school with many goals for my personal and professional development, but my career goal was singular: I was going to get a job in consulting. I knew I wanted to solve tough problems for big companies, and I chose Duke because the numbers speak for themselves: the majority of consulting hires are at elite firms like McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, and Bain. With the help of the Duke MBA Consulting Club (DMCC) and our Career Management Center (CMC), I achieved my goal and interned at Bain in their New York office. Each day of my internship last summer, I was reminded how Fuqua got me there, and how Fuqua prepared me to succeed. But three things in particular helped make my summer a success: Team Fuqua, my Consequential Leadership (C-Lead) team, and one of the more underrated courses in our core curriculum. 1. Team Fuqua When I first heard “Team Fuqua” as a prospective student, I thought it was a marketing ploy. But throughout my first year, I was consistently surprised by the ways Team Fuqua manifested itself. From classmates volunteering to tutor me in accounting on weekends, to one peer volunteering to cook dinner for everyone in the Black & LatinX MBA Organization in the wake of George Floyd’s death—the way that this community cared for one another made this group of friends immediately feel like family. What I didn’t anticipate was how Team Fuqua would follow me off campus. On day one of my internship, a Fuqua alum reached out to me to make sure I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed. A Fuqua grad from 2019 also worked in the New York office and took me under his wing to let me ask stupid questions—like where I could find certain data sources and how to format my PowerPoint slides correctly. Throughout the summer, the Fuqua community reminded me that I wasn’t embarking on this new venture alone—I had a team of support with me, every step of the way. 2. C-Lead Teams Working well in new teams is fundamental to success in consulting, and my experience with my first-year C-Lead team at Fuqua gave me a solid foundation. We all came from different regions of the world, with different goals for business school and for our own personal development. Gathering so many diverse perspectives into a small team room has the potential for numerous points of conflict—but my team never dealt with that. We bonded quickly and worked well together thanks to setting up processes early that emphasized honest communication and mutual respect. When we disagreed, it was over a task, not over personal feelings. We celebrated each other’s successes, and mourned each other’s hardships. During my summer internship at Bain, I was placed on a team of what I considered to be consulting veterans. I was intimidated by their expertise, their rapport with one another, and the speed with which they were able to synthesize information and hone in on the core issue we were solving for. Although I had major imposter syndrome, I was comforted by an early realization: what I was going through felt very similar to my first days with my C-Lead team! Because I had sat in this same discomfort before, I was able to have faith that the imposter syndrome would subside, and that I’d be able to contribute to the team and to our project. The things my C-Lead team had done to bond quickly were easily replicated during my internship. And the skills I practiced with my C-Lead team, like learning how to bring in perspectives from quieter teammates or learning to be OK with being wrong, were critical to my ability to jump into this new team dynamic over the summer and hit the ground running.  Can’t wait to see this view every day from the New York City office 3. ManComm Management Communication, or “ManComm” as we like to refer to it colloquially, is a core course on public speaking and executive presentations. The course is unique amongst other core courses for two reasons: it lasts two terms (a full semester) rather than the usual one term of other classes, and you take the class with only a portion of your section rather than the full group. This break from routine is intentional, in that it gives you more time to actually practice public speaking, and you get to do it in a smaller, safer environment. After 12 weeks, I left ManComm feeling like I had a solid toolkit for building a public presentation, and figured I’d eventually lean on some of the skills if I ever needed to. Fast forward to an internship in consulting, and I was relying on ManComm fundamentals every day. I was constantly presenting to my supervisor, the partners on the case, or other senior leaders. Without ManComm, I would have entered every conversation with additional anxiety, but thanks to the toolkit I developed, I had the confidence to present effectively. I had heard that an internship in consulting would be hard work, but like any self-aggrandizing MBA I figured it probably wouldn’t be that tough. It turns out I was wrong. But although an internship in consulting really is hard, having the Fuqua experience beforehand makes it a little easier. The support from Team Fuqua and the skills developed while at Duke lay a solid foundation for success, and I’m so grateful to have Team Fuqua by my side—now and for the rest my career. The post 3 Ways Fuqua Prepared Me for a Career in Consulting appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
27 May 2021, 13:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Leveraging My Fuqua Network Landed Me a Career in Venture Capital |
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From the first time I visited Fuqua in November of 2018, I knew that the community and network would be an important part of my MBA journey. I’ve previously worked in consulting and digital health startups, and I knew that the prospect of landing a career in venture capital (VC) was risky, given the limited job openings, the general competitiveness of the industry, and the independent and self-driven nature of finding a venture capital job in business school. But it was a risk I was ready to take. I started to curate my venture capital network early and build investing experience. Prior to starting business school, I completed an internship at Coppermine Capital and spoke extensively with my previous employer, Ken Manning, a Fuqua alum and co-founder of Curaspan Health Group, who helped guide me through the business school application process. He continues to be a mentor to me today. Ken is an entrepreneur turned investor, and a long-time mentor to many. At Fuqua, I continued to grow my venture experience through an MBA fellowship with Flare Capital Partners, an early-stage healthcare VC firm. I also took opportunities to supplement my coursework with Mentored Study and worked with Breakaway Ventures, a consumer-focused VC firm. Each opportunity furthered my learnings in venture capital and highlighted my commitment to the industry. In late February of 2020, I was in final conversations for a summer internship position with several venture capital firms and high-growth startups. A few weeks later, with COVID-19 officially declared a pandemic, many of the firms I was interviewing with froze their hiring. I was fortunate to have participated in on-campus recruiting at Fuqua earlier that fall, and received summer internship offers from several companies. I accepted an internship at Cisco in their Product Management team focused on cloud partnerships. My experience at Cisco was fulfilling, and at the end of the summer, I received a full-time offer. What an incredible opportunity. I reflected on my long-term professional aspirations and thought back to my initial goal in coming to Fuqua. I knew my passion was in venture capital, and was confident that my commitment to curating a VC network and gaining VC experience gave me the foundation I needed. It was a difficult decision, especially since I did not have any venture prospects, but I ultimately decided to decline the Cisco job offer. I started the recruiting process again and leveraged every possible resource at my disposal with my Fuqua and Duke network, spearheading many of my conversations. My days were packed managing my next Mentored Study project with Radix Health and Cohere Health, continuing to take a full course load, and scheduling at least one venture capital conversation a day. It was all a rush, and very exciting. And it all paid off. I earned a full-time offer to join Sandbox Industries / Blue Venture Fund, a health care venture capital firm. My dedication, commitment, and support from Fuqua, including the faculty who helped to expand my investment skills and knowledge, my classmates who helped me prep for interviews, and the support and backing from the entire Fuqua community, resulted in me reaching my goal. My advice to anyone who may face a similar dilemma is the following: stay true to your goal. Know your worth. Stay Hungry. Take Risks. And know that it will all work out. The post Leveraging My Fuqua Network Landed Me a Career in Venture Capital appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
02 Jun 2021, 08:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Learning from My Remote Internship at Microsoft |
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Before coming to business school, I worked in the largest bank in Brazil. During the nine years I spent there, I witnessed the growing impact of technology on the financial industry. Every year, I became more and more involved with tech-related projects. However, I knew tech was still viewed as a support area by some in business. Choosing to enroll at the Fuqua School of Business, my goals were to achieve hands-on experience at a company where tech was the core business and also to have a professional experience outside my home country. During the summer of 2020, I interned at Microsoft as a product marketing manager in the [url=https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/]Azure[/url] Customer Success team, building the positioning and go-to-market strategy for a new Azure cloud computing resource available for developers. When I started recruiting for my summer internship, I already knew that I would face professional and personal challenges. But I had no idea how big the challenge of interning during a pandemic would be. Due to COVID-19, my internship was entirely virtual. But my experience was much more than what I expected. The main impact of a remote internship experience was the challenge of making connections and getting to know the company’s atmosphere. However, networking was facilitated by several events promoted by HR, including one-on-one chats and other events. There were even employees volunteering to give Seattle and Microsoft campus virtual tours! Additionally, we could learn more about the company’s culture and strategy through exclusive town halls. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, always says that the company is made up of friendly people that like to learn. And, after being there for the summer in such challenging times, I can confirm that Nadella is telling the truth. Interning during such an intense summer taught me a lot about being proactive and [url=https://blogs.fuqua.duke.edu/duke-mba/2021/01/08/nathalia-borges/becoming-my-best-self-at-fuqua]resilient[/url]. Like many companies, Microsoft allows you to own your internship experience, and I took advantage of it to develop some leadership skills by leading Diversity and Inclusion group discussions and heading social activities for interns while also working on my project. I learned that your experience and success depend mainly on your own dedication. But, undoubtedly, my main takeaway of this experience is that focusing on input outside of your control doesn’t help your future outcomes. The post [url=https://blogs.fuqua.duke.edu/duke-mba/2021/06/02/nathalia-borges/learning-from-my-remote-internship-at-microsoft]Learning from My Remote Internship at Microsoft[/url] appeared first on [url=https://blogs.fuqua.duke.edu/duke-mba]Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog[/url]. |
08 Jun 2021, 09:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: My Fuqua MBA Provided Me with the Courage to Support Women’s Health in India |
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Although it feels like ages since I completed my MBA at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, that experience has never truly left me. It has shaped who I am, who I look up to and who I aspire to be. As the Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, I know just how challenging modern leadership can be. How I approach those problems, be they professional, social or personal, all derives in part from the skills and confidence I gained, and continue to gain, from my Fuqua MBA. As both a woman and the director of an amazing pharmaceutical company, I was aghast to learn that according to the World Economic Forum, India ranks 150th out of 153 countries in terms of women’s health. Some 50 percent of Indian women are anemic, compared with only 6 percent of U.S. women. In a country that has exported the most brilliant technology experts, scientists and statisticians, 23 million Indian girls still drop out of school every year due to menstrual issues. That’s when I decided that we need to prioritize women’s health. We need to begin having candid conversations around these issues, while providing basic but accurate information to dispel various myths in simple, layman’s terms. From this realization emerged the idea of India’s first-of-its-kind talk show on women’s health titled “Uncondition Yourself with Namita.” I chose a talk show format because I didn’t simply want to generate more information about women’s health. I wanted to generate more discussion of women’s health. Google any particular ailment and you can find dry, boring information about it. But information rarely changes people’s minds. Shared emotional experiences do. I knew we needed to have heart-to-heart, inspiring and emotional conversations with experts, doctors and patients in order to begin to create a better world for Indian women. The skills that led me down this path and the confidence that allowed me to excel in this field all came in part from my Fuqua MBA. Creating Social Impact Means Thinking Strategically People don’t always know how to ask, “What is not there?” Leaders, too, struggle to see the gaps and to correct their assumptions. The key to truly thinking strategically about our complex and highly dynamic world is learning how to ask those difficult questions. Women are half the world’s population but are under-represented in government and business and under-resourced in health services and social attention. Internet access and information about women’s health issues is at an all-time high in India but India still lies at the bottom of global rankings in women’s health access and resources. How could there be so much information, and oftentimes resources, while women’s health issues still struggled to even break the surface of the social conversation? I soon realized that the gap was not a lack of information but a lack of translation. In my time at Fuqua, I learned all about how to communicate with diverse groups and the importance of connecting with people on visceral, sometimes emotional levels. Facts don’t change our minds, but shared experiences do. That’s why I started the talk show. That’s why I believe changing the dismal reality of women’s health in India must start with a conversation; open, intuitive and essential. Authentic Self “Be yourself, the world will adjust,” one of my mentors once told me. If I continued to doubt myself, to second guess every decision, to torment myself with “imposter syndrome,” then I would never truly be free, let alone mentally healthy. We women face so many social pressures to act, speak and present ourselves in certain ways, that we find ourselves stuck defining our worth by other people’s judgments about ourselves. Many of these judgments act as a kind of catch-22, where by simply trying to fit other’s expectations, we can never reach them. That is why I say just be yourself, and the world will adjust. Fuqua taught me how to lean in to my authentic self. When I first arrived on campus, I was stunned with how unique and open people seemed. Each person was wholly different and yet resolutely determined to be themselves, whatever shape that might take. Although I may not have been the most confident young person when I arrived on campus, I certainly left campus knowing my true self and ready to take on the world. That experience led me to being the corporate leader I am today, changing how powerful people communicate with colleagues. It has also helped me challenge social narratives and to help others lean in to their genuine selves. Leadership Demands Vigorous Empathy Fuqua builds leaders. With its faculty expertise, think tanks, clubs, team-based culture and emphasis on decency in action, Fuqua is a leadership academy. I was asked recently in a webinar with incoming Fuqua women to define my leadership ideology. I immediately said vigorous empathy: you must demonstrate that you care about people in order to lead them. That approach to leadership has served me beautifully in my career. With a first principles approach that always prizes the human being over the employee, I have successfully scaled a global pharmaceutical company, built a massive nurse-training program, and had the honor of mentoring and encouraging hundreds of young people through my Incredible Ventures Ltd. Now I can add “started a groundbreaking talk show on women’s health in India.” After all, I have always wanted to lead a company with a soul. As they say at Fuqua, your superiors can give you a leadership position but only your subordinates can make you a leader. Without perhaps knowing what I was saying in that webinar, I had not only echoed that Fuqua teaching, but had also lived it in my career. Vulnerability and the skill to connect with colleagues means that when I have to make difficult decisions or need their support to take a big risk, I have their trust. They know I will always have their backs because they know I value them as human beings. Fuqua taught me that we manage assets, but we lead people, and that means connecting with others on a personal level. The Self Deserves Kindness Also We women are excellent time managers. We know how to manage projects and people and deliverables, but we are terrible guilt managers. I remember when I first gave birth and 15 days later decided to go back into the office. I received a great deal of criticism for that decision. So often, women’s lives are filled with people trying to guilt us into acting and feeling a certain way. Even women who may feel emancipated from those external pressures still pressure themselves in ways that will only hurt in the long term. The friendships and mentors I gained at Fuqua and the friendships I have made since have helped me to see that taking care of myself and trusting my instincts is not selfish but rather the validation I deserve. Part of getting my Fuqua MBA was realizing that not only do I deserve to be in that boardroom (and to sit at the head of the table), I also deserve to care for myself. Just as great leaders must recognize and validate their employees’ emotional states, great leaders must also stop and validate their own thoughts and feelings. Being a great leader also means leading yourself. The post My Fuqua MBA Provided Me with the Courage to Support Women’s Health in India appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
15 Jun 2021, 13:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Celebrating Failure by Sharing it Out Loud |
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For a long time, the story I told myself was that business school just wasn’t for me. My internal monologue went something like this: “Come on, you’re a poet, not a quant! What are you thinking? Remember, Excel is scary, and spreadsheets give you hives? You just don’t have the right experience.” Thankfully, there was another, louder voice in my head that just wouldn’t let the whole business school thing go. Still, throughout the application process, I questioned my abilities. Whenever anyone asked me where I was applying, I’d say, “Fuqua,” followed quickly by, “but it’s competitive this year, so I probably won’t get in.” Even when I showed up for my interview, I wondered if the Fuqua Admissions team would somehow, “find me out.” And, realizing that I was a business school imposter, they’d decide that my place was somewhere, just not at Fuqua. So, I’m sure you can imagine when Shari Hubert, our Associate Dean of Admissions, called me one April morning to welcome me to Team Fuqua. I was at once excited, extremely grateful, and also genuinely shocked. Fast forward a couple of months, and it didn’t take long for imposter syndrome to creep back in. All of my classmates appeared accomplished, brilliant, well-spoken, and put together, seemingly without any effort. The conversations and interactions I had both virtually and in-person only seemed to reinforce this perception. Everyone was “fine.” Recruiting was “going well.” Interviews were crushed. Great grades secured. Friendships thrived. And I began to wonder, was I the only one struggling to keep up? I quickly learned I wasn’t alone and that a lot of my classmates were struggling too. One such classmate turned friend was Sowmya Alla, who reached out to me one day and quite bluntly said, “I’m really struggling. Recruiting sucks. This is really, really hard.” From there, Sowmya opened up to me, and I opened up to her. As we opened the door to start talking transparently about what wasn’t going well and not just about what was, we began to feel better and felt less like imposters. The more we talked, the more we noticed how infrequently we discussed our failures inside and outside the classroom, even though we both felt that often our failures proved to be more valuable than our successes. We decided to do something about it and decided to create a podcast called, Failing Forward. Failing Forward is dedicated to providing an honest, humorous, and judgment-free space to discuss our failures, to learn from them, connect through them, and move forward together. So far, we’ve recorded eight plus episodes, have had 1000+ listens, and have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support we’ve received from not only Team Fuqua but other schools. Through the podcast, we’ve gotten to know, understand, and grow through our classmates’ experiences, all while covering everything from recruiting and imposter syndrome to the international student experience and identity. We hope that through Failing Forward, we can continue to build an authentic community by daring to be vulnerable and begin to normalize failure sharing so we can all grow together. The post Celebrating Failure by Sharing it Out Loud appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
18 Jun 2021, 05:00
| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Gaining Exposure to the Tech Industry While Developing Client-Facing Skills |
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I viewed my first year at the Fuqua School of Business as a time to explore various industries and decide which one I ultimately wanted to pursue after graduation. Technology was one of the industries that piqued my interest. Therefore, when I heard about the Fuqua Client Consulting Practicum (FCCP), I saw it as the perfect opportunity to learn more about the tech industry and develop my client-facing skills. Additionally, I felt that FCCP was a great way to build onto my existing skillset that I had developed from my prior strategy and business management experience at JP Morgan, a global investment bank. While I previously held several internal consulting roles, I was excited at the prospect of working one-on-one with a client and developing my client-facing skills through FCCP. In particular, I looked forward to learning how to better manage multiple client stakeholders and deliverables. The Project I joined four other Fuqua students to work with Boomi (a subsidiary of Dell Technologies) on a competitive analysis project. Specifically, Boomi had requested we research the outcomes of various mergers and acquisitions in the iPaaS (Integration Platform-as-a-Service) industry over recent years. Our research culminated in us presenting qualitative and quantitative data on three key transactions in the iPaaS industry. Through our research, we were able to advise Boomi on the mergers and acquisitions strategy they should pursue over the next few years in order to maintain their position as a market leader. The Workload I was very fortunate to have a great team. We met weekly to discuss progress on our research and had bi-weekly meetings with the client to ensure they were up to speed on the work we were conducting behind the scenes. The workload came in ebbs and flows but was highly manageable since everyone on my team kept an open line of communication with each other. My best piece of advice to anyone working on an FCCP team is to be flexible and transparent. Transparent in the sense that one needs to communicate their capacity to their team members. And flexible in the sense that one needs to be willing to shoulder more responsibility during weeks when their team member(s) may have other commitments to take care of. The Takeaways Looking back at my FCCP experience, I was able to check off the two things I was looking for right from the get-go: 1.) client-facing experience and 2.) exposure to the technology sector. In addition, during our quantitative analysis, I was able to put into practice some of the topics we had covered in classes like accounting and finance. Last (but not least), I had the chance to meet and work with other amazing Fuqua students, and we had a blast! The post Gaining Exposure to the Tech Industry While Developing Client-Facing Skills appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
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