Nick Callegari

Yale School of Management

“Intensely passionate about making an impact on the world through engineering and empathy.”

Hometown: Deltona, FL

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have flown on a Zero-G flight with future astronauts to assist with training operations for one of my Extravehicular Activity (EVA) structure designs. It was a riveting experience that led to some valuable insights for the structure currently slated to fly on the upcoming Polaris Dawn mission!

Undergraduate School and Major:

Princeton University | BSE Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

University of California, Berkeley | MEng Mechanical Engineering, Product Design Concentration

Most Recent Employer and Job Title:

SpaceX | Mechanical Design Engineer II, Dragon Structures [Responsible Engineer]

The Yale School of Management is regarded as a purpose-driven program. What is your mission? How will your MBA at Yale SOM help you fulfill that mission? My mission is simple: positively impact on the world. The complexity, however, lies in the execution of this mission and how to utilize my strengths while building on my weaknesses most efficiently. Whether it’s a kind gesture to a stranger or revolutionizing an industry, everyone has the potential to make a positive impact on others in their own unique way. An MBA at Yale will give me the opportunity to dive into the ideas I have to make an impact on society through a purpose-driven, application-oriented lens. To make a net positive impact on society through business, it takes an intimate understanding of the relationship between business and society, something that Yale SOM specializes in which I am excited learn about.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of Yale SOM’s MBA curriculum or programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? One aspect of Yale SOM’s MBA curriculum that ultimately was pivotal in my decision to enroll in the program was the emphasis on both business and society. At the end of the day, businesses influence all aspects of people’s lives, whether people work for them, spend time and resources at them, or are impacted in other ways by them. Not paying careful attention to the impact of business on society is a shortcoming of many programs. Yale SOM, however, makes sure to focus on the influences between business and society, doing so through various lenses of key stakeholders within a business and within society. It’s through this multi-perspective approach that one can truly understand the larger picture of how to operate a successful – and impactful – business, which is something I would like to glean from my MBA experience.

What course, club, or activity excites you the most at Yale SOM? I am eager to participate in the Social Entrepreneurship Lab course, which is a practice-based course that allows interdisciplinary teams to focus on tackling a social challenge of their choice for a semester. What deeply excites me about this course is how it embraces failure as a tool for learning and growing, creating a safe space that allows the class community to push the limits on how they approach making a difference in the world. Being able to work with the fecund minds at Yale SOM in tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems is an experience I can’t wait to partake in.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: I helped lead a team of engineers in designing, analyzing, manufacturing, and testing a novel Dragon 2 spacewalk structure to be utilized for Extravehicular (EVA) activities on the upcoming Polaris Dawn mission.

What do you hope to do after graduation? Following graduation, I hope to spearhead a startup that makes a positive impact on mitigating climate change, with a particular interest in novel sustainable transportation methods.

Although I’m cognizant of the fact that there will be a lot of hurdles along the way, I’m confident that Yale SOM will sharpen my toolset and broaden my perspective to successfully navigate any challenges associated with the startup journey.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? I also applied to the following MBA programs through the QuestBridge Graduate Match Program:

• Stanford Graduate School of Business
• Wharton School
• University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Berkeley HAAS School of Business

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Yale SOM’s MBA program? Dig in deep and embrace all parts of your story – the successes and the failures. For the successes, think about how to creatively tell a story that captures just how momentous the success was to you and how it made a tangible impact on people’s lives. For the failures, don’t be afraid to describe your failure and how it affected you. By embracing what makes you human, you’re one step closer to understanding how to make a meaningful impact on others… who are also human, just like you.

DON’T MISS: MEET THE MBA CLASS OF 2025: INSPIRING, INVENTIVE, IMPACTFUL