Veerle Daenen, MBA ’14 | ToniBird Photography
This series features our students’ reflections on their aspirations, learnings, challenges, and joys. Here, Veerle reveals how a collaborative and diverse environment provided exactly what she needed while pursuing her MBA.
[It was important to me] to be part of a diverse and tight-knit community. Something special — memorable — happens when people from different backgrounds cross paths, work together, and live together. Looking back on past experiences, I have felt the most energized by unexpected conversations that questioned my points of view, by ideas building on completely different ideas, by people’s stories.
I found exactly that in the welcoming Stanford GSB community and in the interdisciplinary teams of the d.school; at companies where engineers, creatives, and business teams work together to build the future; when living in large and dynamic cities; and when sharing a home with friends from all different walks of life.
It’s definitely the reason I felt so at home at Stanford GSB! It drives my career — as a scientist who entered the business world yet dedicates most of her free time to writing, art, and architecture. And I will continue to seek out this diversity, hoping to re-create this sense of “adventure yet belonging” throughout my life.
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