Priv Bradoo from Auckland received the 2006 Fulbright-Platinum
Triangle Scholarship in Entrepreneurship to complete an MBA at Harvard
Business School. A little over halfway through her two year award, Priv
already has plenty to report about her studies, internship and other exchange
experiences.
Priv Bradoo in the laboratory, before
she traded in her lab coat for a position at Harvard Business School
My ride back on the T (Boston’s Subway System) today was an exciting
one. I was just making my way back from the Women in Business Convention
at the Hyatt on Avenue de Lafayette in downtown Boston, where I had been
invited to teach a marketing case to undergraduate women with an interest
in business from many of the nation’s top universities. I have to
say, I had thoroughly enjoyed teaching, and thankfully it appeared that
I wasn’t the only one enjoying it! But apart from just having a lot
of fun playing ‘teacher’ for a change, I spent a lot of the
subway ride thinking about how far I had come in the last year.
I couldn’t believe just some twelve months ago I’d come to
the US for the first time, meeting a whole lot of Fulbrighters at our
orientation in New York, and was about to embark on the MBA program at
Harvard Business School! And for me, the journey from lab scientist to
entrepreneur to being a business school student at this prestigious institution
has truly been a transformational one.
I remember my first day on campus. It was a beautiful Boston summer afternoon
on the 12th of August 2006. It was the date of my 25th birthday and here
I was with my parents moving into my true-to-spirit ivy-covered dorm building.
What a birthday treat!
The MBA program started off with a high intensity prep course called Analytics.
This was an introductory two-week course for 300 or so non-traditional
students like me who had after a multitude of journeys found a passion
in business and commerce, but without formal training. We had crazy crash
courses in accounting, finance and quantitative skills every day from
7am, and crazier socialising events until insane hours of the morning!
I’m not quite sure where I garnered all that energy, but all I remember
is a lot of work, a lot of fun, and a lot of amazing people from around
world.
Somewhere along those two weeks Analytics transitioned into formal school
orientation (there was obviously too much partying involved for me to
remember the exact transition point), and I jumped right into the formal
MBA program with 899 of my first-year peers. Given the large size of the
first-year cohort, the class is divided into 10 sections. These sections
all have a life, spirit and dynamic of their own, and I was a proud member
of Section C.
The first thing I noticed about being in class is that we clap for everything.
Although this did seem hilarious at the start, it has helped me significantly
exercise the thenar eminence muscles of my hands! This was also my first
exposure to the renowned case study method of pedagogy at HBS, and all
I can say is after having a taste of this, it will be hard to learn any
other way. Rather than spending 90 minutes of class time listening to
the professor, this is a unique way to learn from the varied experiences
of 89 other students - bankers, consultants, marines, military people,
people from not-for-profit, industry experts, entrepreneurs and scientists.
And with such a diverse range of experiences and backgrounds, each class
promised to be a tremendous learning curve.
Apart from all the courses we take, there are always a million things
that one could be doing within a day. This has, in fact, given rise to
the famous acronym used by HBS students - FOMO (fear of missing out!).
Between recruiting presentations, making a ton of new friends, hearing
Al Gore, Lee Scott and Steve Ballmer (usually all on the same day), team
dinners with professors, club activities, conference planning and preparing
for conferences, there are just never enough hours in the day!
Some of the highlights of the last year have been taking part in a two
week Social Enterprise trek to Costa Rica, helping organise the Healthcare
Conference at HBS and having a phenomenal summer internship experience.
I spent the summer at a renewable energy company called Mascoma, a 25-person
start-up funded by some top venture capital firms in the US. Mascoma is
looking to produce ethanol from cellulosic biomass. Not only was it transformational
in that this space is absolutely exciting, it was also a chance to work
with great like-minded people. (Not to mention work on the announcement
of one of the first ever cellulosic ethanol plants in the world, fly around
Michigan in a private jet and meet Governor Granholm along the way!)
Now, two months into the second year, I only wish time would slow down!
Every day is just so much fun that I would do anything to live this experience
all over. I was fortunate to be chosen as one of 35 students out of 1,800
to be profiled on the HBS website, which brought home something so key
to my entire Fulbright and MBA application process - even though we are
a small country of 4 million people on the other side of the world, we
can always compete with global giants.
Right now, a couple of things that I’m working on are planning the
first HBS immersion program to India as a part of the Centennial Year
celebration of the school, and preparing to co-author a case study on
my summer employer.
As life continues here in true Red Bull and Vodka style, I miss home,
family and friends in New Zealand a lot. But suffice to say, I will bring
back a lot more than when I first left last year.
