Meet Harvard’s MBA Class of 2017

THE CHANGING FACE OF HBS REFLECTIVE OF ITS GROWING STRENGTHS

And the uniqueness of this group is even more pronounced when you look past their collective numbers to their individual stories. For example, Olufunke A Faweya, an engineer from Procter & Gamble, is your proverbial career switcher who plans to learn marketing so she can return to her native Nigeria to launch a business. Francesca Ioffreda was a Fulbright Scholar and Davis Project Peace Prize recipient, who has produced a film and developed an educational curriculum to help the poorest communities in Columbia and Paraguay. Samantha Yung, already an engineer and game inventor, hopes to sharpen her abilities to scale operations and pitch investors. And Alula Eshete, a Wisconsin engineer who has already led projects and teams at Abbott and General Electric, welcomes the opportunity have his “perspective flipped upside down.”

Those are big accomplishments and big dreams. Then again, HBS is the ultimate ‘go big’ school. With over 1,800 full-time MBA students, it is the largest “elite” business school. For some, the sheer size makes students the proverbial “small fish in a big pond.” For most, this reality means you need to think bigger and perform better to set yourself apart. While Harvard prizes leadership and intellectual heft, students can make a name for themselves with creativity, and global-minded approach.

More than size, HBS has scope. Forget the school’s stereotype as a CEO factory or a finishing school for blue bloods. That’s so 1970. With the emergence of the Rock Center For Entrepreneurship, the school has transformed into an entrepreneurial Mecca. School alumni have produced 40 of the 100 most-funded startups of the last five years. This, coupled with Harvard alumni’s deep roots in private equity, creates an alluring 1-2 punch for aspiring entrepreneurs.  What’s more, HBS maintains the largest endowment of any business school. And it isn’t afraid to spend it, offering twice the annual scholarship dollars as its nearest competitor. After graduation, Harvard MBAs earn the most, with a 2014 joint study with PayScale and Poets&Quants finding that they earn $3,233,000 over the 20 year period after graduation– over $230,000 more than Stanford MBAs.

STUDENTS ATTRACTED TO CASE METHODS (FOR REAL)

For now, the Class of 2017 is concerned more with learning than earning. In fact, the case study method was one major plus for students, despite clarion calls for more experiential learning from some critics. Leffler was drawn to the case method for its innate difficulties that simulate real business challenges. “It demands preparation and synthesis of a large amount of (often incomplete) information to get to the heart of an issue very quickly and then engage in a productive dialogue with the people around you. The range of industries and perspectives in just my section alone (section i!) significantly shifts the learning experience by demonstrating that there are no simple solutions to any problems.”

Ioffreda echoes Leffler’s sentiments. “It creates a dynamic learning environment, brings to bear the unique experiences and backgrounds of your classmates, and encourages students to be fully engaged and present…Learning how to analyze a situation, knowing how and when to contribute to a discussion, and how to take a stance are key skills that will serve me well over the course of my career.”

Brandon Kaufmann, who worked at Morgan Stanley before entering HBS, also believes the school’s sundry class composition is perfect training for aspiring leaders. “I am interested in meeting people with as diverse set of backgrounds as possible. I figured a larger class size increased the likelihood of accomplishing this goal, and I definitely have found that to be true.”

In fact, HBS’s people – past and present – may be their biggest selling point. “At both Facebook and Google,” Leffler muses, “I was fortunate enough to have worked closely for and with many HBS graduates, many of whom helped me develop in the very early stages of my own career. In hearing about their individual experiences at HBS, I got the sense very quickly that the experience at HBS was a transformative one.”

2 YEARS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

So where does the Class of 2017 plan to go from here? Like any good leader, Faweya is already envisioning the end game, hoping to “spur [people] to action” and inspiring her peers “to achieve things they previously did not think were possible.”

To the contrary, Francesca Ioffreda isn’t quite sure about the destination, though she has already laid out a path for herself. “During my time at HBS, I plan to tap into as may resources as possible to enhance my breadth and depth of knowledge of different business functions and career paths. In addition to gaining new technical knowledge, I hope to use this time to develop my personal brand of leadership. Most importantly, I hope to have developed a network of life-long friends and colleagues.”

To read profiles of incoming Harvard students – along with their advice on tackling GMAT, applications, and interviews – click on the student links below. 

Alula Eshete / Madison, WI

Olufunke A Faweya / Lagos, Nigeria

Francesca Ioffreda / Arlington, VA 

Brandon Kaufmann / Denver, CO 

Libby Leffler / Modesto, CA

Samantha Yang / St. Louis, MO