Haas MBA students selected for the IBD (International Business Development) consulting engagement, apart from sharing the tourist getaways, share a poignant observation - while discussing the client and their customers from thousands of miles away, they lacked the perspective on the ground realities. The statistics were too impersonal. When they reached on-site, the real challenges for enterprises to overcome infrastructural limitations and price sensitivity became apparent.

Haas MBA Essay: What makes you feel alive when you are doing it, and why? (300 words maximum)

Sometimes life’s mission might be something that has a ripple effect on an entire generation and the future of humanity. It could be working on a vision to bring equity into a society that is growingly becoming unequal. It could be working on systems, policies, and technology that would determine how humans will consume and expend resources for the next 1000 years.

Theme: Climate Change

Berkeley Haas MBA What Makes you feel Alive Essay Example: Design as a Tool for Change

Theme: Design

Theme (Explained): When engines and integrated chips can be concealed beneath the flow of human interaction with no one even wondering that there are hundreds of machines and technology, a few inches and a few yards away from our daily existence, the eye soaring wind turbines and clunky solar panels are a big resistance to the adoption of renewable energy. 

Berkeley Haas MBA What Makes you Feel Alive Essay (Selling and Serving Low-Income Immigrants)

Theme: Selling

Q) Tell us who you are. How have your values and experiences shaped your identity and character? How will your background contribute to the diverse Tuck culture and community? 

Background Information: A Product Manager in Healthcare shares her experience in transforming the culture in a healthcare company to support working mothers. 

Theme: Gender Equity, Working Mothers

Tuck MBA Essay: Tell us who you are. How have your values and experiences shaped your identity and character? How will your background contribute to the diverse Tuck culture and community? (289 words)

Background Information: The applicant noticed a strange bias emerging in a machine learning algorithm despite data verification. The solution to the bias and the creation of an algorithm review process is the core of the narrative.

Theme: AI, Bias, DEI

Tuck MBA Essay: Tell us who you are. How have your values and experiences shaped your identity and character? How will your background contribute to the diverse Tuck culture and community?

Background Information: The applicant credits early education through storytelling as pivotal in her career orientation into marketing and escaping the bad influences in the neighborhood.

Tuck MBA Essay: Tell us who you are. How have your values and experiences shaped your identity and character? How will your background contribute to the diverse Tuck culture and community?

Background Information: An applicant caught in the battle of his analytical and creative brain finds a match at Teach for America, where he is entrusted to apply his editing skills to keep Grade 1 to Grade 3 students engaged in online study sessions. 

Theme: Creativity

Tuck MBA Essay: Tell us who you are. How have your values and experiences shaped your identity and character? How will your background contribute to the diverse Tuck culture and community?

Background Information: An entrepreneur musician shares the power of music in improving the mood of distressed children, her mentorship, and the agency she started to help upcoming artists. 

Theme: Music, Education, Job Security

Background Information: The applicant notices one person in his team consistently underperforming. His humane intervention to address the personal challenges helped the teammate rise to a star performer. 

Theme: Inclusion, Mentorship

Theme (Explained): Often, mentorship when a peer or a sub-ordinate underperforms need context-setting about the problem.

For the essay, the theme of the intervention is holistic mentorship where the person’s personal challenges are handled sensitively.