Ismael Hernandez, Fuqua MBA Class of 2019
Age: 28
Hometown: Mexico City, Mexico
Institution and Major: Tecnológico de Monterrey, economics
Pre-MBA Work Experience: Olympic athlete, bronze medal holder in the Rio 2016 Olympics for Pentathlon
Why business school? Why now? I wanted to keep learning and improving my business acumen. At the same time, I know that everything I have learned through life can be useful and impactful for society, so I also want to keep going and pay it forward.
Why Fuqua? What factors figured most prominently into your decision of where to attend? Fuqua has some things that are really very special for me. The first is that it is a haven that truly balances both big performance academics and athletics. The whole campus is a full mixture of sports and academic excellence. There are basketball matches every week, the culture is amazing, and you never get bored here. The second part that makes Fuqua special is the people who come here. We have something here called “Team Fuqua.” It’s like having a family that is not of your own blood. Everyone supports each other, cares for each other, and no matter what, no one gets left behind. Everyone helps each other out, even in the hardest situations.
What do you think is your most valuable or differentiating contribution to the Class of 2019? There are not many Olympian bronze medalists in the class. But the main thing I can help my friends and classmates with is perspective. I have been in highly stressful situations, dealing with rejection, dealing with a very charged environment. That can all be applied to the business world. I can offer my classmates a different perspective and help them improve their emotional stability. In the last term I conducted some workshops about mindfulness, awareness, and how to control stress and control expectations. I did it with my section. We are divided into six sections of approximately 75 people each.
Fun fact that didn’t get included on your application? A fun fact is that I am terrified of horses and still I had to ride horses for the Olympics. The reason I was terrified was because when I was a kid I had a bad accident and fell off a horse. When I grew up I said, “Okay, you need to do this.” And the first thing I did when I rode a horse was fall off again. I came to realize that the worst thing that can happen is falling to the ground—but you need to keep riding the horse.
Post-MBA career interests? After business school I am aiming to do two things. The first is to keep supporting my community. I have a nonprofit organization in Mexico that connects universities and athletes so they can complete their studies. The second thing I am aiming to do here is to enter the consulting world. When I first came here to Fuqua, I had no clear idea. There were so many paths in my life that I wanted to investigate and keep building, but the one that really caught my attention was consulting. I felt the consulting world really related to the competitiveness I used to feel in the Olympics.
Advice to current prospective applicants:
–One thing you would absolutely do again as part of your application process? Be truthful, be honest. It really helps you to find your true fit. For me, Fuqua worked the best because I am able to share my thoughts and days with people who are similar to me in some points and so different in others. Overall, though, we have the same core values—that is helping each other and supporting each other in how to make our society a better one and have a real impact in our world. So my advice is to be truthful, be honest, and don’t be scared, because you never know how far you can go unless you give it a try.
–One thing you would change or do differently? I would have applied earlier to have a chance to go to admitted students weekend. They are quite a party. They are amazing—you get to meet a lot of people and you get to know your future classmates as well as the second-year students. Some of them become really close friends. That’s how you start building relationships that will last throughout business school. I applied in the second round and attended an admitted students’ weekend in April, but I wish I had applied earlier and attended the earlier weekend in February, just to start building those relationships even sooner.
–Part you would have skipped if you could—and what helped you get through it? Actually, I wouldn’t have skipped anything. I won’t speak badly of other business schools, but at some, their process was different than the one here at Fuqua. The process here at Fuqua—I did it all with a smile on my face. It’s not every day you get asked to share 25 random facts about yourself or about how you plan to pay it forward to the community. Those are great essay questions that not every business school asks, and I think they really get to the real people who are beneath the GMAT scores and GPA. Fuqua is definitely focused on academic excellence but also on the person beneath those numbers—the values and the people beneath scores.
Greatest highlight so far at Fuqua? I have so many but I think one of my favorites was learning who my teammates would be because they truly become really close friends. I know I can rely on them whenever I need them. Another highlight I have had here is getting to know really, really interesting people—from the guy who worked at Apple who is an avid mountain climber to the girl who served in the Peace Corps in Morocco and now is transitioning to health management. The most impressive highlight of Fuqua is how these diverse people fit so well together with each other into this place we call almost home.
One thing about Fuqua that you didn’t expect before arriving? I didn’t expect to have that much fun in my classes, especially in managerial accounting. Every time I heard the word accounting I related it to a dull topic that I am not interested in. But there is this professor called Scott Dyreng who is really amazing at teaching accounting. You don’t expect accounting could ever be so funny. That’s just one of the amazing, unexpected things that happen here at the business school.
Thing you are most anxious about in your first year? I was anxious about the difference between my background and what I am trying to build. It is not normal or common to be an Olympian transitioning into business school and the business world. As I’ve been trying to figure out which path I should follow and what should be my next steps, I have met with rejection after applying to some companies. But in the end I have to remember back to another part of my life—how I qualified in the Olympics and then won that medal. You train, you fail, but you have to keep training—that is something that brought me here and will get me to my next steps.
Thing you are most excited about in the remainder of your first year? I am most excited to see what the new classes are. I want to keep learning, improving, getting to know the professors. There are so many interesting profs here at the university. The world-class network that the university supplies is amazing. So I am really excited for the future classes. I am also looking forward to becoming a second-year student and helping the first-years navigate this ocean of confusion that sometimes business school can be. I look forward to the new opportunities that my second year will bring to help lead people, to get to know more of myself, and to keep learning.
