Rob Self (MBA 2021): About me & HBS student life

The following is an computer-generated summary of the video transcript.

Hey, everyone, my name's Rob self and I'm a second year E C student at the Harvard Business School. Before coming to Harvard, I was a mechanical engineer at Ford Motor Company on I worked on the GT 500 GT 3 50 Shelby Mustangs, the Rapture F 1 50 programs, as well as the launch of the 2019 Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus. Coming from product development engineering, coming to HBs was a little bit of a pivot before coming. I didn't really have much exposure to finance to accounting toe all of these general business concepts that are really core to the curriculum at HBs Before coming to HBs. Also, I had primarily lived in the Midwest. I moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin suburbs, and I went to high school in that region on then I spent about the last eight years inthe e an arbor, Michigan, uh, southeast Michigan area. So I think one of the things I was a little bit worried about before coming to HBs Waas will I fit in and, you know, can I be, uh, you know, a student who contributes to the class at Harvard Business School. I think, you know, after kind of doing some class visits, getting a feel for the campus, getting to know a lot of the students who go here, Um, and as well as now being a student here, having gone through my first year, I've really realized that a lot of these concerns were, you know, concerns. They were not actually things that would come to fruition. I found myself, you know, making really diverse groups of new friends being exposed to a lot of new lines of thinking, getting, you know, exposure through the case method. All of these different, uh, you know, business scenarios that I had never would have had experience with as as an engineer in my day to day work. So I think coming to HBs has really been a pretty transformational experience so far. I've gotten to know, you know, 94 section mates in my section over the last year and a half quite well, Andi all have a myriad of different backgrounds and experiences that I think are just extremely compelling and and drive me to think about, you know, the leader that I'm going to be and the contributions that I'm making to the communities I live in, I think another, you know, concerned. Um, as a mechanical engineer, I've kind of see the technical side to sustainability solutions and climate change. More broadly, I kind of realized through my time as an engineer that, you know, to make large impacts in climate change of sustainability. Um, typically, these solutions need to also have a business case. So there also needs to be, you know, profitability that could be tied to some of these ideas. One of my motivations for coming to business school was to get an understanding of the business side to kind of bridge the engineering experience that I had with, you know, a potential scope that would allow me to give perspective on, uh, you know, the business application of ideas within companies and within, you know, the globe about addressing some of the large problems that society has. Um, I think I'm gonna create a few more videos in the coming weeks that talk a little bit about my application process. What I was thinking about, why I chose Harvard Business School. Some of the things I've been really surprised about here, Um, but I will say that, you know, HBs has been a phenomenal experience thus far. I think a few of the major things that I've been really excited about have been the case method getting to get, you know, broad exposure to all these new business topics, being able to contribute in class and here from my other classmates and learn from, you know, people who have very nuanced perspectives of an industry they may have worked in before eso getting those perspectives out and open in the classroom, especially in an environment that's kind of mutually caring for one another. We kind of all understand where we're coming from. We've all built these really great bonds to be able to push each other and push our understanding of, you know, some at times, divisive topics. I think another thing that brought me here waas, um, the integration of partners that come to HBs within the broader community. So I think HBs does a really phenomenal job making partners, you know, a part of the entire experience of an MBA degree. Uh, My wife, Jeannie is medical resident doing her residency in Boston right now, but she has every opportunity to join on campus events. Meet my section mates, meet people that I'm going to class with on bake friends within the community beyond just my own friends. So the fact that she feels accepted here and has the opportunity to be a part of this experience is well, is something that was really exciting for us on bond and something that I think has been a really big positive of the experience. Eso look out for my upcoming videos I'm excited to talk to you guys about, You know, some of the things I thought about when applying on baby convinced you that HBs could be a place that you could be too.