QS Scholarship Winner: Gaining Direction through Social Enterprise

In getting to the point of knowing exactly where she wants her career to take her, Sarah's experience with a social enterprise has been seemingly crucial. Indeed, Project Light Up only arose because of her search for a new career direction. "After my consulting stint, I started thinking about what I really wanted to do and I recalled a promise I had made to myself to do something for the village I had first visited a year before."  

Sarah says that the ensuing decision to start her own social enterprise left her with a mixture of emotions. While it was both liberating and exciting to fulfil the promise she had made to herself and go it alone, it was also terrifying in equal measure. “Without a salary, minimal connections and virtually no team, how on earth am I going to bring a mere idea into fruition?” she had asked herself.

Nevertheless, the hands-on experience of translating this idea to reality lies behind the sense of purpose Sarah now has in her professional life. "Project Light Up has shown me that I feel most purposeful and am most productive at work when I know that what I do directly impacts society positively," she explains, adding that it also helped her develop two core beliefs - in innovating on business models and developing creative solutions to solve problems. "I seek to combine these beliefs in my career in healthcare innovation." 

As she prepares for the start of her MBA program, Sarah has already been impressed by the level of interaction between fellow members of her cohort, through online connections, in-country meet-ups and pre-school trips. "It's really organic and INSEADers really support each other," she says. Another thing that stands out for her is the level of diversity she will be exposed to during the MBA program. "I really appreciate this unique point of INSEAD in ensuring that there is no single, dominant nationality so that students have as wide an exposure as possible to other cultures, worldviews and opinions etc. It's also my first time in Europe and so I think this is definitely going to be an exciting year."

As for Project Light Up, it certainly seems that acquiring an understanding of the culture and context of life in the Riau Islands village made all the difference. In her scholarship-winning essay, Sarah recalled a 'pivotal moment' when her frame of mind shifted from 'let me help you' to 'let us work together'. "It was important to show that we were genuinely interested in working together," she says nowand, ultimately, this was reflected in the success of her and her team's efforts in impacting the lives of 300 people through the provision of solar lamps, a community water filter, powerboat and kindergarten – things that have been of real use to those the social enterprise worked with.  

Advice for other MBA scholarship applicants: "A single piece of advice I would give is this: Narrate a true story of yours that not only paints you as the deserving candidate of a scholarship but also answers the question directly and in a compelling way. I have also written a short piece on GMAT Club entitled, 'Advice I would give my pre-MBA application self', I hope you find it helpful!"