On closing doors to open others.
A reflection on reflection. One enticed by applying to business school.
These days have felt like a roller coaster of emotions:
Grand overarching chaos. Boxes and piles of things. To-do’s and emotional mayhem.
Bouts of nostalgia. For the things I did and the things I did not do.
Bursts of anxiety - For what’s coming next. How to best prepare. How to make the most of this next new era.
A little excitement. - Just a little. The whole process has been taxing, emotionally. It has left little space for excitement. My to-do list is currently taking up too much space, a whack-a-mole of things that NEED to be done, and has left little space for other things to be felt. First come, first serve kinda mode right now.
It’s a concoction of emotions; the all-encompassing anticipation that builds when you are about to close doors.
To open others.
The kind of emotional bedlam you’d expect when you're packing your life in cardboard boxes getting ready to move to another country for grad school.
Note: It's funny how we can fit our lives into boxes, just to be stored away. The whole concept deserves an essay on its own. “Our lives in stashes”, I’m going to title it.
Now. Back to the theme of this essay.
Grad school. The beginning of an era.
Anyone who has gone through this process will not let me lie. Applying to graduate school forces you into a position of reflection. Not only because you are asked to sum up who you are, what you’ve done, and what you’d like to do, in as little as 350 words. But also because it forces you to really understand yourself and what makes you unique and worthy.
I had never really put careful thought (the definition of reflection, right?) into my business school decision. It was just something I knew I wanted to do. Why? I guess it was something I owed to myself, so I did not really question why I was doing it.
That is, until that unfortunate interview.
Let me give you a little bit of context:
When I enrolled in design school, I was aware this career choice would, in a way, leave my business skills underdeveloped. I decided back then that I would deliberately address that asymmetry by going to business school. Then, after my short-term assignment with the credit card team at Citi’s headquarters in New York City, I came back with a new business perspective and redoubled my determination to study an MBA. For me, the Global Talent Development program provided a glimpse into the growth that pursuing an MBA could offer.
And so, the process began:
I applied for a spot in COMEXUS-FULBRIGHT, a scholarship awarded to Latin American students who wish to pursue graduate studies in the US. This scholarship is granted prior to actual program applications.
As I moved forward to the interview round, I was surprised by a question I did not anticipate to get:
“Why would you want to study an MBA if students aspire to have positions like yours after graduation?”
///As a note, I was working as an SVP at a bank at that moment, a position that apparently made business school look like a weird decision to make at the moment.
Oh, my goodness. They do? - First thought.
PANIC. - Second thought.
Improvise. - Third thought.
I’d be lying if I told you I remember what I answered, but what I do recall was knowing both the committee and I knew that the answer was BS. I knew I wanted to go to business school, but I did not know why other than understanding that a good design leader benefits from being well-rounded in business and technology.
Needless to say, I did not get the scholarship.
However, the question really incited a deep reflection on why I wanted to suddenly pause a, somewhat, “successful career”.
And I did just that. I deferred my applications and went deep to my core to understand why I wanted to do this, and even considered if I wanted to do this at all.
And I did. (Things clicked when I imagined myself at 80, looking back on my life. I realized that not trying would be something I’d regret and that would haunt me forever.)
And once I understood my WHY, it became easier to understand how the things I’ve done and achieved actually do build a cohesive story that leads to business school.
But perhaps, most importantly, is that now I know what I want to get out of school. Or at least I think I do.
Business school has never been just about advancing my career. It really is about building a strong, business foundation for meaningful work that resonates with who I am. And also, with what I’ve done so far.
What I know for sure is that I am not looking to pivot nor start from scratch. I want to take the foundations I have built through the years and construct something awesome on top of that.
After all, it's taken sweat, blood, and tears to get to this point.
We are not throwing that away.
Here’s to the first week of grad school! Upwards and onwards.