What It’s Like To Be A Gay MBA Student

Andersons Columns

The columns wrapped at Anderson. Courtesy photo

Once on campus, Dickau experienced the same inclusiveness.

“There was a career advisor who is out,” Dickau says. “It seemed like there was someone in every single department who I knew I could turn to. I really felt the support from the administration and that matters a lot.”

No more support than perhaps this past week at the UCLA Awareness Week. Anderson’s LGBTQ group, Out@Anderson teamed up with UCLA’s LGBT Campus Resource Center to have a weeklong celebration of 20 years of advocacy at UCLA (April 12-18). The columns at Anderson were wrapped in colors and Dean Judy Olian made the pledge to support the LGBTQ community. The week also included a daily hour-long “Ally Rally,” a moment of silence to go with the workshops and panel discussions.

“It’s called Awareness Week and it has been true to its name,” Dickau says. “It’s the job of a business school to train leadership that is ready to tackle business problems and real world problems, and lack of diversity in leadership is a huge problem.”

‘WE WANT OTHERS TO THINK IT’S WEIRD TO NOT BE AN ALLY’

Dickau has been trying to change the perception of what it’s like to be gay and a leader since being at Anderson. During orientation he was elected the president of his section. And now he tries to make his presence felt as an accessible leader.

“I’ll stay on campus for 12 hours a day just making my presence known,” Dickau explains. “As a group, we want to have a strong presence and play an integrated role and not just be this marginal community off to the side.”

According to Dickau, the national spotlight currently on marriage equality is the perfect time to bring awareness and education to the issue.

“We want all of our classmates to graduate with the tools and understanding to support LGBTQ coworkers in the workplace,” Dickau says. “We want others to think it’s weird to not be an ally. The ally community can be a strong, proactive voice themselves. Allies are the reason marriage equality is happening. We couldn’t make change without them.”

A COMMUNITY OF SUPPORT AND INCLUSIVENESS

Support from within the LGBTQ community and their allies can continue to lead to changes toward inclusion. Dickau experienced this firsthand quickly after coming out to his section during his minute-long presentation at orientation. One of his fellow classmates was a gay Chinese man.

“He had previously decided not to come out during his time at Anderson and then go back to China,” Dickau explains. “But then he came up to me and said, ‘you came out, you can help me, I want to do that as well.’ He could tell from the reaction of our classmates this was a place that would be supportive.”

The student first confided to his Chinese classmates that he was gay and then to the rest of the school. According to Dickau, the student was concerned mostly how his fellow Chinese students would handle the news.

“Soon after, he was at a panel event on campus and all of the Chinese students came to support him,” recalls Dickau. “I knew Anderson was the right place for us then.”

“THERE IS NO PROBLEM”

The next step for Dickau is a job in Deloitte’s Human Capital consulting practice. And as he continues to work through inclusiveness and equality inside and out of the business setting, he holds onto one Tanzanian lesson he learned soon after first coming out—hamna shida. It’s slang Swahili for, “there is no problem.”

“I carry that lesson with me every single day,” says Dickau. “There have been many things that didn’t go the way I wanted them to go. We make mistakes all of the time but that phrase and lesson puts things in perspective and reminds me of the privilege and support I have had.”

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