It feels like yesterday when I was still a student at Fuqua. It was an amazing experience, but at the same time, it was one of the most challenging moments of my life. I was finishing my first year when the COVID lockdown happened, and we were forced to go through a period of uncertainty and challenges we had never seen before. But for international students like me, this had additional implications.

As I’ve shared before, I took over the role of International VP in the MBA Association, our student government. I was able to see up close the myriads of obstacles international students had to face. Some were stuck in their countries, not able to return to the U.S. to continue their studies (a friend even got stuck at the airport for a month!), and others were facing different policies threatening our ability to stay and finish our studies. Do you know how hard it is to get a social security number when all their offices are closed, and be unable to start your MBA internship without it? It was a crazy time. But in those times, we were also able to see the best of our community.

A Focused Mindset During a Chaotic Time

The Fuqua staff, at all levels, went above and beyond to give us the support we needed even while they were navigating all this uncertainty for the first time themselves. Every week, we learned about changes to the U.S. immigration processes coming directly from the leaders of the federal administration at the time, which made us feel our plans were at risk.

With Fuqua’s International Programs Office (IPO), we developed this three-step framework to address these comments:

1. Will this change actually take effect?
2. Would it affect us as MBA students and alumni?
3. Is there anything Fuqua can do to help mitigate its impact on us?

By using this framework, we were able to shift our focus only on the things that could affect us and adopt a solution-oriented mindset. If uncertain times come again for international students and immigrants like me, I suggest you adopt this mindset. If you are a current Fuqua student or are planning to enroll at Fuqua, rest assured the staff will have your back!

How Fuqua Steps Up

I was also able to witness how much international students mean to the Fuqua community. Domestic students showed constant interest in how to support their fellow international classmates, even though they were not affected nor responsible for all the issues arising. From asking what specific actions they could take as American citizens to help us to simply reaching out to hang out and get to know us better, they showed up in different but very valuable ways.

To our community, on behalf of all the international students, thank you! Your genuine interest in helping us made all the difference in the world. We felt we were part of Team Fuqua then more than ever.

Looking Back and Moving Forward

As an alumnus, I’m now able to reflect on those challenging times and realize how much I learned from them. I got way more than I expected out of my Fuqua experience. Not only did I get a first-class education, but I also learned about leadership and navigating uncertainty in high-stakes situations.

My time as a Fuqua student prepared me to be successful as a professional in the U.S. and to have a positive impact in my community. The only thing we know for certain is that there will be more uncertainty in our future, so being a leader of consequence with high IQ (intelligence quotient), EQ (emotional intelligence), and especially DQ (decency quotient) will prove to be very valuable to succeed. Thank you for reading about my experience as an international student — I can’t wait to hear about yours!