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MBA Voices
MBA Voices
Although I did not know it at the time, my path to business school began on March 1, 1992. It was my ninth birthday, and I was enjoying the liberty that came with growing up on a farm on the outskirts of a small mining community in Ohio: riding my all-terrain vehicle (ATV) through muddy fields and plunging in and out of puddles of melted snow. My future career was far from my mind, but even at that young age, I was contemplating the world and my place in it. In Appalachia, opportunity ebbs and flows with the demand for steel and coal. And in 1992, many of the factories that had provided the community’s lifeblood sat dormant along the banks of the Ohio River. Consumed by poverty, the soft bigotry of low expectations had crept into the social construct, sentencing families in underserved communities like mine to a lifetime of waiting for steel and coal’s resurgence. Through rust-colored lenses, our place in the world appeared immutable. [...]
I applied to the HBS and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) MBA/MPP (Master of Public Policy) Class of 2023 to learn about the interplay between the public and private sectors in health care. Health care spending in the United States will soon make up one-fifth of the country’s GDP and over the past decade, legislators have passed countless health care policies that impact how hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers deliver services to patients. Even more, the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has uncovered major cracks in the health care infrastructure that will certainly lead to substantial policy change over the coming months and years. At Harvard, the combination of renowned faculty, endless student resources and a location at the epicenter of biopharma R&D made it the perfect place for me to learn more about these issues and identify how I can be at the forefront of effective solutions. [...]
If the past two decades have demonstrated technology’s potential, one of the challenges of the next ten years will be defining its boundaries. How can new technologies benefit people and societies in equitable ways? How can companies -- increasingly central to the development of frontier technologies -- responsibly manage innovation without sacrificing profitability? What is the role of government in mitigating harms and establishing safeguards?
I came to the HBS and Harvard Kennedy School MBA/MPP joint degree program interested in exploring these questions related to technology’s public impact. Along the way, I’ve been able to develop my understanding through both coursework and extracurricular offerings at Harvard. [...]
Ratnika Prasad is Exploring Solutions to Climate Change at Harvard
- 25 Jul 2019
Advancing a More Sustainable World with an MBA/MPA-ID
I quickly learned that beyond health or environmental benefits, government and organizations' decisions on issues of sustainability rested first and foremost on the financial benefits and cost savings. [...]
In tech,” Henry Tsai (MBA 2017) says, “it’s ingrained in you to ask, ‘Where can I be impactful?’” After a summer internship serving in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, Henry’s target location came into view. “Of all the different levels of government, cities are the closest thing to a business. Strategically, it made sense to look at public sector service at the city level. [...]
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The views and opinions expressed in the MBA Voices blog are those of the authors.
Any political views shared by students are their own; HBS does not endorse a
particular party or candidate.