What does it take to earn an MBA at Harvard Business School? For Emiliano Galván, Alumnus in Mechatronics Engineering at the Universidad Panamericana, the journey began long before he received his acceptance letter.
During his conversation with Alumni UP, Emiliano shared how he built toward that goal based on his professional experience, training, and, above all, his decision to seek out opportunities that might have seemed out of reach at the time.
From Consulting to an International Perspective
One of the defining moments of his career came when he entered the world of consulting. Meeting professionals from some of the world’s top universities allowed him to shift his perspective: he realized that he, too, could compete and aspire to those positions.
Years later, having gained experience at Bain & Company in Mexico, he made the leap abroad to work at a startup in England and, later, at an e-commerce company in Germany. It was then that he decided to prepare himself to take the next step. The process required discipline and perseverance. He studied for the GMAT on his own, took practice tests every weekend for several months, and took the exam multiple times until he reached his goal.
Preparing for Harvard Business School
Preparing for her candidacy also involved reflecting on her own career and identifying the experiences that had helped shape her leadership. Through a personal exercise, she worked to identify the stories, decisions, and lessons that best explained who she was, what she had accomplished up to that point, and what she could contribute to the Harvard community.
This process helped him understand that an MBA application is not built solely on academic or professional achievements, but also on the ability to reflect on one’s own journey and make sense of it.
Their story is part of the experiences of UP alumni that demonstrate how a university education can serve as a springboard for developing international careers.
More than just a single destination, getting into a university like Harvard is the result of a process that combines preparation, experience, learning, and the decision to seek out new opportunities. In Emiliano’s case, that journey began long before he submitted his application and was shaped by each of the experiences that defined his path.
His experience offers a particularly valuable message for students and UP alumni: getting into a world-class university doesn’t start with an application, but much earlier—with the decision to prepare yourself, seek out role models, and recognize that it is indeed possible to aspire to such opportunities.
