Lessons Learned — MBA Year 1: Part I

Part I: Grief & Loss in the MBA — What I learned and how I moved on

The picture above reflected the spirit that I started the MBA with — carefree, full of spirit, and ready to take on the world unknown. I was hot off the achievement of finally getting into business school — six years after I had started the journey in my mind. So naturally, my self-confidence was boosted, and everything I built on top of that confidence still heavily relied on the very notion that I was confident in myself.

The pandemic brought about many challenges but through it all, I had been convinced that the heavy obstacles were overcome — so no matter what, I was well-equipped to take on whatever the world came forward with. I mean, after all, what could be worse than an ongoing pandemic?

The biggest naivety I had was believing I had gotten past the hard part. But the thing is — life goes on and it does get harder. There was once a Grey’s Anatomy quote I heard that I often reflect on as times become more uncertain:

“Chances are your luck’s going to turn around. It's science, it’s the law of averages. It’s going to turn around, and when it does, you say hello.”

So what happens when you fall — when your luck turns around and you have inevitably run out? What happens when life changes you as you are in the middle of meeting an influx of new people?

For me, my first iteration of this was experiencing grief through the loss of my cousin. The night before, I had a brilliant night with my newfound business school friends — laughing and giggling away through the streets of Austin. The sun rose the next day as I was getting ready when my brother came over to talk to me about something important. He sat me down on the balcony and told me: “she drowned — she’s gone”.

Immediately, I felt the rush of grief overwhelm me as I wailed into the early morning. The denial was immense and I refused to believe this really happened. I canceled all but one of my plans for the day and slumped into a foggy haze. Everything felt unreal — how could life feel so different in a matter of hours? Why did the weight of the world feel so heavy, again? How could she be really gone like this? Why am I here in this miserable headspace — again? It didn’t feel fair (oh, what a naive notion in it of itself, I know).

In the immediate days after her passing, I read many articles and talked to mentors about how to handle grief & loss. Most of the content referenced the importance of finding a project or something to pour your remaining passion & soul into. So — much of my immediate attempt to recover was to pour my effort and soul into my new wellness initiative at school: The Mental Health Wellness Collective.

Even though my personal loss happened a few days prior to the first meeting, I was determined to not let the grief define me, but rather drive me and push me to find new meaning in the circumstances. I steadfastly believed that this must have happened for a reason — the timing had to make sense somehow. So I pushed through and this was our first meeting:

In the early months, I was able to channel a lot of my energy into finding self-awareness for myself and learning to feel the pain for what it was — through the Collective and my own personal efforts towards growth (journaling, meditation, etc). I had never really experienced a loss of this magnitude before — so learning to verbalize it was incredibly hard, especially with people I had just met. But I realized, this was the new me. Regardless of how high energy I came into the program, any person is a whole range of emotions and life experiences — and I was going to be no exception to the rule.

So, I talked about it — over and over and over until I finally came to a place where I accepted things for what they were. Luckily, I had people around me who openly and actively listened to my pain, held me while I cried, and helped me through the harder parts of business school. Many of them let me express myself fully — a concept I never really experienced in full force until business school. The community was real at McCombs — it wasn’t a marketing gimmick or a hook. They showed up when I needed people the most and that meant everything.

In the end, I learned a few things about being vulnerable, especially in the MBA program:

1. Accept that life will continue to get more complex, more uncertain, and more confusing — and that’s okay.
2. Let people in when you need help — even if it may feel unnatural at first. Especially in an MBA program, people want to help and grow together, so lean into it.
3. Seek out the MBA community that will really show up for you. Often, people glorify MBA programs for their rankings, academics, and recruiting status but in the end — the people matter. The community matters. Because after everything is all said and done, you want people in your corner who cared to be there and actually care for who you are, really.
4. Be honest with yourself & what you need. FOMO is a real feeling but nothing is worse than being somewhere with no energy to engage. Take care of yourself and listen to your body, heart, mind, and soul.
5. It will all work out in the end — trust the process.