Written by Danielle Werner, Global Ambassador and MBA student, Hult London Campus Class of 2017.

I’m not going to make you wait in suspense here. My reasoning for choosing Hult can be summed up in one word: different. I had been contemplating doing an MBA for a few years, especially with encouragement from my father, who had to drop out of his MBA program when offered the opportunity to move the family to Shanghai, China. He wanted me to do what he wasn’t able to finish.

I wanted to get a Masters degree to satiate my need to keep learning, and an MBA would allow me to learn a range of different subjects. I don’t like being ignorant, and I have always enjoyed going into varied areas of interest whenever a gap showed itself. I’ve also historically taken advantage of the surge in free online education, completing courses in everything from mythology to HTML (it was the coding courses on Codecademy that helped me get into the IT field). I even did a series of introductory MBA courses on Coursera to wet my toes and see if business was for me (I learned I like Operations and Marketing)!

But still, I was hesitant. I looked at different schools, toying with the idea. So many of the marketing materials featured the stereotypical business person, dressed in a suit, destined for a shiny corporate job. Those schools are perfect for many people, but I knew I’d be out of place in one of them. I was going to work in jeans and hoodies, dyeing my hair purple and red, working with small teams of developers in small tech companies, and I was loving it. I only own one suit, pulled out only for interviews!

As much as I loved what I was doing, I wanted more. If you know about Tom Rath’s StrengthFinder 2.0 book, my top strength is “Learner”, meaning I have an insatiable hunger for knowledge. I didn’t feel like I was progressing quickly enough or getting enough new challenges. I reached a point where I needed to do something, and so I made the spontaneous decision to sign up to do the GMAT and look at the MBA programs in London.

But I was still faced with that big issue: fit. Fit is so important when choosing a school. You’re about to spend a lot of money and spend a lot of time with people, often in very busy, very stressed circumstances. You don’t want to feel like an outsider on top of all that.

And that’s where Hult stood out. I was looking at a few schools, but when I walked onto campus to meet my (incredible) enrollment director and take a tour, I knew I was in the right place. Seeing the current students milling about, I knew I could study here. For a start, there were people in jeans! My people!

There was also incredible diversity. Men and women, of all races and ages. As someone who was born in Africa, raised in Asia, and worked in the UK, I spent a lot of my life surrounded by people from all over the world. Working in the UK (though not in London), I, as you can guess, spent a lot of time with mostly British people, which was weird for me. Knowing Hult attracted very international students was a huge draw for me; while others might find working with other cultures outside of their comfort zone, this was actually a return to my comfort zone!

In my cohort of London MBA students, we have over 20 nationalities, a fairly even balance of genders and a wide variety of career backgrounds that I challenge other schools to echo. And let me tell you, the diversity brings a lot of fun! (A special shout out here to our funniest classmate from Trinidad & Tobago). Each day proves that I made the right choice, as not only do I learn a lot from the amazing lecturers Hult brings in, but I learn even more from all the cultures and personalities I interact with.

Finally, a lot of schools are perfect for the future investors and finance gurus of tomorrow. But I’m a techie through and through, and I want to stick within the IT industry, becoming a leader in the digital arena. Hult is a new school, a disruptor of the business education space, and it is doing things a little different from the traditional schools. In today’s quickly changing and increasingly technological world, I felt like Hult was best prepared to give me the skills I need for my desired career path. I don’t want to go into the ‘same old same old’ MBA jobs. I want to be on the forefront, and that’s right where Hult is.

For someone like me who likes a challenge and an international environment, plus a curriculum that values disruption and differences, Hult is the place for me.

If you would like to find out more about our business programs, download a brochure here.

Dani has come from the tech world to get her MBA from Hult’s London campus. She has a background in retail software and online education, and her experiences have infused her with a passion for helping people achieve their goals with the right tools. Dani truly embodies the Hult DNA with her dual nationality, South African and German, and international life being educated in China, Japan, and the UK.