Before HBS, I moved to Kenya so that I could work on critical infrastructure projects and help build the foundation of countries. While contributing to some of the largest energy and transportation projects in the region was rewarding, I realized that none of the projected development would materialize without a healthy population. It became clear that global health was an integral component to development and that an “investment in human capital, partly through global health, is a prerequisite to inclusive economic growth” (Former president of World Bank, Jim Yong Kim). This summer I sought out to test a hypothesis of mine that led me to apply to business school: that the skills developed through an MBA could contribute to solving some of the world’s toughest global health issues. [...]

While Mizuho Kanai (MBA 2018) was fulfilling her summer internship at NPR, her manager recommended that she read an HBS case study about how the Sesame Workshop CEO, Jeff Dunn (MBA 1981), was changing the institution. “I was blown away,” she says, “by how Jeff and his team were bringing business rigor to the institution.” [...]

My internship with the National Park Service has given me a unique perspective on park operations. In my view, each park unit (there are 417 in the U.S.!) runs like a mini-business, with a twist. [...]

Olivia Staffon, MBA 2019, shares a day in the life during her summer internship at the National Park Service, Dinosaur Park. Her project is focused on evaluating opportunities for sharing operational resources such as equipment, labor, or expertise, between multiple parks. [...]

I began my MBA with the goal of utilizing business practices for land management issues. Scouring for applicable insights, I attempted filtering my coursework through the lens of a natural resource specialist. However, even with that perspective, the connection between business and conservation was not yet becoming clear. This guided my decision to intern with the National Park Service (NPS). My objective was to test the portability of MBA principles to practical and timely resources challenges. [...]