It still feels like yesterday, when I stared down at my acceptance letter from Hult. It was October 2013, right after finishing a masters in Computer Network Management. I was at a career crossroads, a point at which life decisions weigh a bit extra. After months of research and thinking, I had finally found a business school that suited what I was looking for. Consequently, I set off on my MBA journey.
I came to Hult’s San Francisco campus open and looking forward to a new experience. I was very much aware that I was embarking on my most challenging educational experience yet. Being both a temporal and financial investment, I had to be fully aware of the importance of an MBA before deciding to come to Hult. In hindsight, I couldn’t have made a better decision. My experience has been worth all my investments.
The school organized a set of activities throughout the start of the school year in September that serve as an immersion into the program, aimed at welcoming and integrating the diverse group of new students. In my program, the MBA, about 50 different nationalities are represented, though there are 100 different nationalities across the campus. A scavenger hunt around San Francisco on registration day helped us acclimatize to the city, a place many of us were calling home for the next year. But it was a rope course that was the definite highlight of the immersion. We experienced the type of adrenaline rush that can push you to do stuff you have never done before, like walking on wires suspended between forest trees, and trusting your team members to hold on the rope when you jump, walking on thin planks and ropes with a team member balancing and helping one another among other exciting activities. The majority of the activities were aimed at building teamwork and communication skills, along with understanding. At the end of immersion we all joined together with other programs at a welcome party; the school year had officially begun.
Before long, I realized and appreciated Hult as the home of diversity. Where else could you have a chef, a professional DJ, a former military officer, a dentist, a nuclear physicist, a lawyer, a former Olympic athlete–among many others—situated within the four walls of a classroom, and learning and sharing experiences? The new experiences continue, months into the academic year, and I still see and meet new faces within the MBA program and across the others. Stefan, a fellow Hult Ambassador summed up this dynamic well by saying, “at Hult San Francisco there are no strangers, just friends you haven’t met yet.”
The Hult atmosphere is uniform across various campuses globally, rotating to the Dubai campus to take two courses in May/June was an extension of the San Francisco campus. Meeting whole new sets of friend, exploring new opportunities and culture in a different city. Accounts of friends that rotated to other campuses (New York, Shanghai, London and Boston) all are of similar narrative. Coming back to my home campus (San Francisco) for the homestretch of our program was the perfect way to end our academic year.
As a Hult student, I’ve transformed into a true global citizen, one that appreciates an assortment of cultures, experiences, and respects people for who they truly are, what they represent and not what I want them to be. My journey has been a non-stop roller coaster ride filled with excitement, challenges, long hours, team meetings, discovery, BBQs, friendships and non-stop learning. Which has definitely made me evolve as a person, pushed me out of my comfort zone to fully understand who I am and what am capable of doing. We recently set a new Guinness World Record for “Most Nationalities in a Business School Class”, where 80 different nationalities took a finance class on derivatives to set the record.
There’s a saying that success occurs when opportunity meets preparedness. I believe this describes the MBA program at Hult. All our hard work is helping us to prepare for re-entry into the real world, but we also have many unique opportunities through the school that makes the year more memorable. As Louis Pasteur said, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”
To reflect and celebrate the past one year before getting our diplomas, over 600 MBA students from across the various Hult International Business School campuses will all be heading to the small mountainous city of Davos which has a population of little above 11,000. With an elevation of around 1500m, it is the highest city in Europe and home to the World Economic Forum (WEF) held annually in January. This year it is also home to the graduation ceremony and gala of Hult 2015 MBAs, can not think of a better way to end our Hult experience than at home of WEF.
If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it. - William Arthur Ward
You’re not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You’re going to advance in life by what you’re going to learn after you leave here. - Charlie Munger
Nothing is as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate. The world doesn't need any more gray. On the other hand, we can't get enough color. Mediocrity is nobody's goal and perfection shouldn't be either. We'll never be perfect. But remember these three P's: Passion + Persistence = Possibility. - Jon Bon Jovi
Congratulations to Hult Class of 2015!!!! We did it!!!
Fahad Garba is a Hult Global Ambassador and a 2015 MBA candidate based at the Hult San Francisco campus. He is looking forward to hearing from you – find him on Twitter: @fahadaliyu and email: fahadaliyu@gmail.com
