Meet MIT Sloan School of Management’s MBA Class Of 2024

P&Q: What have MBAs told you is the most memorable, signature experience they’ve had in your program? Why did it resonate so much with them?

Herson: “Completing the rigorous Fall Core semester in cohorts and with a core team creates both a strong sense of community and individual accomplishment in each class. Cohorts and teams are organized in a way to maximize diversity of student backgrounds. Students tell us they find this experience builds their capacity to think and work successfully across different perspectives.”

P&Q: How does the MBA program leverage the resources of the larger Boston community? How does that create more opportunities for your students?

Herson: “MIT and the greater Boston community are a hub for technological, financial, and life sciences innovation.  From the Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship to Action Learning Labs to club events and treks, students are able to take advantage of the rich ecosystem to learn, explore and connect with people and cutting edge ideas.  The concentration of higher education in Boston creates additional opportunities for students to engage across campuses in activities, conferences, accelerators and other events that enrich their time here.”

P&Q: What types of programming or services does your business school offer that make it welcoming and advantageous to women? Underrepresented minorities? International students?

Herson: “The MIT Sloan community creates space and opportunities for students to expand their worldview and simultaneously find others who share their lived experience.  There are a large number affinity clubs that student members find an invaluable source of support during their MBA journey.

The MIT Sloan Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’s mission is to create proactive, research-supported initiatives and programs that promote MIT’s Values. We develop and deliver data-driven solutions that advance systemic change and enrich our community through opportunities for engagement and learning. We fulfill our mission in partnership with staff, students, faculty, and other members of the MIT community.”

P&Q: What is the most underrated part of your program that you wish students knew more about? How does that make your graduates more valuable to prospective employers?

Herson:

“MIT Sloan graduates get to join a network of over 144,000 MIT Sloan and MIT alumni across the globe.

MIT’s motto, mens et manus, translates from Latin to “mind and hand”, which reflects the educational ideals of MIT’s founders who were promoting, above all, education for practical application. This is an important component of MIT Sloan culture. It is through the combination of thought and practical action that MBAs are able to create change and solve current and future problems.

MIT Sloan embraces problem-led leadership. This variety of leader doesn’t follow people, they follow problems—big, tricky, complex problems that have the potential to make a much-needed impact on the world. Finding viable solutions drives our MBAs at the core.”

5 REASONS TO CONSIDER MIT SLOAN

1) Entrepreneurship: “There are only a few MBA programs that support Entrepreneurship in a creative way in the USA. MIT’s Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship offers the key MBA programming that led me to choose this business school. I’m an entrepreneur at heart. I’m very interested in Sloan entrepreneurial culture, which marries business, technology, and disruptive ideas. Choosing Sloan was important to me because I have a vision to build “Salons of the Future” and MIT Sloan will give me the opportunity to bring my idea to fruition.”
Robin Butler (’24)

“The MIT Delta V Capstone Educational Accelerator program that prepares MIT students entrepreneurs to launch into the real world is one of the experiences that excites me the most. This opportunity is special because it is piloted in NYC, and New York is going through a tech boom of its own. For me, this location on the East Coast is the epicenter for business, real estate, beauty/ fashion, and tech. As an entrepreneur who has her cosmetology and real estate license, this type of opportunity to create a disruptive idea in a 3-month-long incubator. Having access to resources, information, engineers, designers, venture capital and more is a game changer in my hopes to solve industry problems. It excites me because historically, as a woman of color, I haven’t had access to all the resources and “institutional knowledge in one room.” It’s exciting to have everything at my fingertip in order to create more of the world I desire to see.”
Robin Butler (’24)

2) Action Learning Labs: “The Enterprise Management Lab interests me the most given the hands-on experience it provides students with in working with large, established companies and helping them solve commonplace challenges. Post-Sloan, I am looking to work as a product manager in big tech with the long-term goal of joining my technology family business in India. Given both aspirations, the EM track will help me understand ways to optimize processes and think about big-picture problems faced by businesses in the expansion/growth phase.”
Misha Nathani (’24)

“As someone who prioritizes efficiency, the Operations Lab is very interesting because I believe it will help formalize learning and developing frameworks for achieving efficiency and scalability of organizations.”
Rupen Dajee (’24)

3) Digital Prowess: “Sloan’s finance courses, taught by distinguished faculty and Nobel Laureates, coupled with my pre-MBA experience in finance at the central bank, will sharpen my financial skills and prepare me to to transition into an investment management role within the Indonesia government.”
Michael Christian (’24)

4) Traditions: “The Yarn, for sure. The Yarn is a storytelling event that happens about once a month at Sloan. It is open only to members of the Sloan community. It can be funny, devastating, enlightening, unifying, and is often all of those things. Sloan students are vulnerable and real in front of hundreds of their peers. It is an incredible way to get to know friends and classmates on an entirely different level. I was lucky enough to give a Yarn earlier this year, and it was one of the most special experiences I’ve ever had. The interest and support from fellow Sloanies were simply priceless.”
Emily Johnson (’22)

“The Rolling Sloans! The student-led rock band plays at least one big show every year for our classmates. Hanging out, playing music, and performing for a large crowd is so much fun and has helped me make several close friends at Sloan. The takeaway? As serious as we are about our learning, at MIT we like to have fun outside of the classroom as well.”
Kenny Groszman (’22)

5) Impact Investing Initiative: “There is so much I want to learn from faculty and classmates. One thing I have been excited about since applying is taking part in MIT’s Impact Investing Initiative (Mi3). Coming from the foundation world and having worked on many national initiatives from the non-profit side, I am excited to learn and engage in ways of investing private capital that yields return that can be supportive for public purposes.”
Jaylen Hackett (’24)

ADVICE TO PROSPECTIVE APPLICANTS

“Tell a compelling storyline about your life’s journey that highlights the impact you’ve made in your career and showcases your personality outside work. I’ve coached many prospective MBA applicants from Indonesia. They often encountered a difficulty in combining elements of their life into a concise, coherent, and powerful essay. The ability to summarize one’s life journey into 300-word cover letter for Sloan MBA application is critical to pass the initial screening. While the essay usually focuses on your career’s impacts, the one-minute video is where applicants could spotlight their personality and be their truest self. My video started with me playing an instrument in a place where I first learned music. I believe my approach adds another layer to my admissions profile while differentiating my application amongst others.”
Michael Christian (’24)

“As you do this, be authentic. As easy as that sounds, this requires significant reflection.  Prospective students may have preconceived notions that MIT Sloan is looking only for people with strong science, technology, engineering, and math backgrounds. In reality, each class is made up of students with diverse academic experiences. Rather than making assumptions about what the “ideal candidate” looks like, recognize that this ideal can take many shapes. Showcase who you are and the value you will bring to the community.  It can be helpful to share your application with those who know you best and ask them one simple question: “Does this sound like me?”
Katie Hango (’24)

MBA Student	Hometown	Undergrad Alma Mater	Last Employer
Robin Butler	Henderson, NC	North Carolina A&T	COIL Beauty Inc
Michael Christian	Jakarta, Indonesia	Bandung Institute of Technology	Bank Indonesia
Rupen Dajee	Orange County, CA	UCLA	Twisted Kelp
Jaylen Hackett	Mobile, AL	University of Southern Mississippi	Black Economic Alliance Foundation
Katie Hango	Bakersfield, VT	Villanova University	Deloitte Consulting
Tess Harper	Arlington, TX	Duke University	Quantis
Misha Nathani	Pune, India	Pomona College	Cybage Software
Obianuju Nsofor	Lagos, Nigeria	University of Lagos	Platform Capital
Grant Windom	Sarasota, FL	U.S. Military Academy	U.S. Army