How my vision of the world and business has changed through the MBA journey

If I look back on my career path, I can connect the dots that brought me to Italy to study an MBA at POLIMI GSoM. Back then, I would never have known that after studying Industrial Design and having started my own business, I would leave everything to come to the other side of the world to open my mind to new knowledge, cultures, and people. But now it makes a lot of sense, as I’ve always known in my mind and my heart that having my own business is one of my goals in life. After my undergraduate program, I understood the concepts of clients, customer journey, product development, and user-centered design, and it went perfectly when I decided to start my business, as we developed a disruptive product that entered the market with big differentiation. But later on, the gaps started to appear, and the need for knowledge rose up in me; I knew I needed to set my mind on a new challenge that would lead me to where I wanted to be, and that was deepening my knowledge of business administration to complement my creative mind.

I’ve now been on my MBA journey for four months, and it has far exceeded my expectations. Studying this Master is not just about business administration, but about shaping the leaders of the future. With a big focus on soft skills, and an amazing approach in “Leading with Purpose”, this school places great emphasis on our incentive to find this big purpose that will lead our decisions in life, to live and work purposefully towards our goals. This is something I’ve never heard of in my business experience, and it has been very enriching to be able to work on myself, to learn to be a better leader in the future. Opening my mind to this new way of thinking about businesses and the goals in life has awoken in me a great eagerness to pursue what I want with more tools to face every challenge, whether with a good or a bad outcome, to face frustration, and to celebrate success.

But even if this has been a big part of the MBA journey, the academic program has also given me a 360° view of how businesses work. Even if I’ve studied and experienced it before, to have this overview has opened my mind in a different way, a map has been built in my mind and the different paths and strategies that a company can take in every different area have become very clear. This has been summed up by the experienced professors, the guests, webinars, and workshops we’ve had with amazing leaders. I think the most valuable outcome so far has been closing my knowledge gaps and going beyond to understand that at this point, everything is possible. To sum up, a business mindset complemented by creative and entrepreneurial skills can lead me to a great path for my future.