Dropped In to Life

Dreaming of being an innovator - leaving a difference in the world as the mark of my living - I felt studying Innovation and Entrepreneurship made most sense as I neared graduation as an engineer. I knew how to build; now I needed to learn what to build. Being admitted to Babson College felt like a dream come true. Babson has been ranked #1 for Entrepreneurship for 32 years and being accepted with the Impact Award made the path ahead seem clear.

Boston it is. I moved to the U.S. at the end of July and took time to get involved with local culture and communities. I went to meetups for business owners, biotech people, startup founders, physicists, historians and others. I met many people doing what I hope to do. With an automotive business idea in mind, I also surveyed people around the city to validate my problem statement - to check if my idea addressed a genuine need. That exposed me to even more professionals and to their views on technology, but as consumers.

All this made me question whether the classroom was the best place for me right now. I was still only doing prerequisite courses for my M.S., so I could have waited and settled into the “life of a grad student” and let the question blur. But would that have been right?

While I was fretting, I asked a friend for her advice - she was starting grad school at Babson too. Waiting for her in the city garden, I came across a U.S. Marine Corps 250‑year celebration. I idled in the garden and wandered the stalls, talking with servicemen and officers. I ended up speaking to a Marine Corps sergeant who suggested I could join and, with my qualifications as a graduate engineer, be tested for an officer role. I hadn’t even cleared eligibility yet (which I later did), but being offered that possibility was striking… especially since I was already on the fence about dropping out.

Talking with those people, it was clear, I wanted to enter the professional world and do something that mattered. Something meaningful. Something greater than myself. A typical office job wouldn’t give me this satisfaction, but neither would sitting in a classroom researching hypothetical cases for assignments.

Engineering is what I love. Engineer is who I am. Continuing the course felt like putting a “halt” on my passion. Many people I met, including the sergeant, argued that entrepreneurial and leadership skills can be learned more effectively through experience than only through formal education.

Deciding to leave Babson was not easy. Accepting it was even harder. It felt right to move forward. I didn’t have the luxury of time to prepare mentally for either path, but I did have all the facts.

Returning to Australia and stepping into the professional world feels better. It’s hard to describe - there’s a quiet comfort to the decision. Australia felt more like home, though with my short time in Boston I had already begun to feel at home there too. MIT has a beautiful campus; I can imagine being a PhD candidate there one day, perhaps plan my retirement as a researcher there, but that’s far ahead and not my immediate concern.

The satisfaction of being part of something greater than yourself — that’s what drew me to consider the Marines full time. I’m still young and have my whole life ahead of me; now feels like a good time to take the first step.