QS MBA Scholarship Winner: Understanding What’s Out There

By Pavel Kantorek Updated Jul 29, 2019

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Introduction
MBA people skills

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“For me, everyone is the same.” Juan Lara’s statement – made in the context of a description of his initial experience of the US after life in multicultural Panama – is one which neatly sums up the central tenets of the work for which he was awarded the QS Community MBA Scholarship.

Lara, an aerospace engineer by trade, with six years of experience with Boeing under his belt, first decided he wanted to use his skills and experience to make a difference in 2004, while studying at the University of Central Florida. He volunteered as a tutor for freshmen belonging to minorities in the engineering department. The results were impressive, and soon the department extended the scheme to third and fourth year students. Lara found himself helping his peers, with whom he would graduate – a rewarding experience which created a sense of togetherness between them.

“I knew then that enhancing diversity in STEM fields was my passion and what I wanted to continue doing as a professional.” Among (many) other things, the MBA scholarship winner joined the Society of Hispanic Engineers as volunteer mentor in 2007, giving talks to minority student groups. “Once students see a successful minority out there, talking in front of the class, they get inspired. Many students come from family where their parents hadn’t finished college, so they don’t really have understanding of what else is out there and end up limiting themselves to what their parents did.”

He acknowledges it can be intimidating, and that it can be challenging to break into an industry like aerospace engineering: “When I started at Boeing, there weren’t a lot of Latin Americans.” At the same time, he believes that many companies are actually doing a lot to address this. “It can be more about the people themselves sometimes – I helped with recruitment, and often you find there’s a hesitation, not enough [minority] applicants.” Though of course there are still deeply ingrained issues of inequality in society, there needs to be a push at this stage in order to address the imbalance, he suggests.

MBA people skills

Lara personally had to do a lot to achieve the success he has. “My university wasn’t necessarily a powerhouse in aerospace engineering, so I had to do a lot of extracurricular work to get out there and meet people, and to get where I wanted to be.”

His achievements are all the more impressive when you consider he came to the US as a shy international student who initially struggled with the language barrier – something which you wouldn’t necessarily realize when first talking to him today.

Getting out there and helping people he says, helped him with this. “Now I feel way more confident, it really helped with people skills, particularly dealing with people from different cultures, as it wasn’t just Latin Americans I was working with, but people who came from different parts of the world.”

Improving on these people skills, and learning how to manage people is one of his main motivations for wanting to get an MBA. “I always wanted to go back to school when I started working. Dealing with people has always interested me and I felt like I had a strong application package, with six years’ experience, so I decided to go into management and move into the product development world.”

He knows how the product itself comes into being, but wants to gain an understanding of the business side of things, citing marketing and finance as areas of interest, alongside the aforementioned people skills.

He has opted for an MS/MBA program at Boston University – what was his motivation for choosing this school? “I was looking for programs with a very technical focus. There were five programs with a dual MBA with engineering I considered. Boston has a really a good reputation for MBA programs and it’s a really good engineering school, so it worked out really well.”

He has his eye on the private aerospace sector when he graduates, and is also considering an entrepreneurial venture in the aerospace or another high-tech sector. Does he intend to continue his work with minorities? “Definitely. I’ll continue to work in community outreach, talking to high school and university students and encouraging them to aim for a graduate career.” Corporate citizenship, he continues, will be central if he decides to launch a start-up. He has in fact, he mentions, just returned from a trip to Thailand to help rural kids learn English.

No matter what he does though, one thing is clear – Our MBA scholarship winner will clearly continue to serve as a role model for those he is trying to inspir

Written by

Pavel Kantorek

Mansoor is a contributor to and former editor of TopMBA.com. He is a higher and business education specialist, who has been published in media outlets around the world. He studied English literature at BA and MA level and has a background in consumer journalism.