Breaking Barriers
Navigating Leadership, Learning, and Motherhood
- By
- February 15, 2024
- Student Experience
As a leader at a Fortune 500 company, a scientist, an MBA candidate at Chicago Booth, and a mother of a one-year-old, Stephanie Hwu shares how she balances these diverse roles in her life.
What made you decide to pursue an MBA at Booth?
My path to the MBA was not a linear one. I hold a PhD in engineering and have spent most of my career developing medical devices for early disease diagnostics. When I joined the R&D team at Becton Dickinson, a global medical device company, I became fascinated by the intersection of technology and business. I wanted to see how the work we did in the lab translated to market success, how it aligned with the company's financial strategies, and how it shaped our product’s position in the market to serve our customers. I came to believe that an MBA would offer me a broader understanding of business, management, and leadership skills.
Choosing Chicago Booth’s EMBA Program was a mindful decision both personally and professionally. I was born in the US, grew up in Taiwan, and was educated in Switzerland. Booth’s global EMBA Program has campuses across three continents where students have the opportunity to learn alongside an international and diverse cohort in all three locations; this resonated with me. As a scientist, I was drawn to Chicago Booth’s commitment to data-driven decision-making and analytical rigor, making Booth my obvious choice for pursing an MBA.
How did you plan to balance a full-time job, an MBA, and new parenthood?
Starting the Executive MBA Program required extensive planning and a strong support system. My managers at work were encouraging, understanding that the EMBA program would enhance my professional capabilities.
It was a little more complicated at home. Commuting from San Francisco to Chicago every other weekend for class was a significant undertaking, and my husband was juggling his own busy career; he had recently been asked to work in Germany for a year. My pregnancy was happy news but also introduced further complexity. Like many families, we faced new decisions in terms of career, school, and childcare.
I’m grateful that my husband and our families living in Taiwan and Chicago all came together to help. We devised an intricate, international caregiving plan for my son, Andor. I took the first quarter’s final exams a few days after my delivery and studied throughout my entire maternity leave with the help of my husband and family. When my husband was called away for work, I traveled with Andor to Chicago and my in-laws took care of him during my classes. For the program’s international session week in Hong Kong, Andor was able to stay with my parents in Taiwan. This strong familial and professional support system was indispensable for me to pursue this ambitious path.
Apart from my professional and personal support system, Booth’s Program Office also ensured that I had what I needed to succeed and thrive in the program. When I wanted to join the Hong Kong cohort for a short period of time, they helped me work through my schedule and facilitated a campus transfer. This allowed me to fully take advantage of the international experience that the program offers.
How has your experience at Booth been as a new parent? What advice would you give to people who want to start a family and pursue an MBA at Booth?
My experience as a new parent has been truly exceptional. Booth’s flexibility and the immense support from the program office teams in Chicago and Hong Kong, my classmates, professors, and TAs made it possible to juggle motherhood and studies without compromising my career aspirations. The presence of many other parents in the program fostered a strong sense of community and understanding.
If you are contemplating both starting a family and pursuing an Executive MBA, my advice is to boldly go for it. This program has a global cohort, and you will meet a very connected, collaborative group of people across campuses. Being a working parent with a young child can be difficult, and adding an MBA to that will test your limits both physically and mentally. But with support and determination, it is doable. Start by separating fear from facts; most of the things you worry about might not even happen. Focus on your priorities and nonnegotiables, then build and execute a plan around them. Ensure you have the necessary support and be ready to adapt to unexpected situations, especially since having a baby often means things don’t always go according to plan.
When I first enrolled at Booth, my goal was to understand the basics of business and management. However, the learning journey has surpassed my expectations. Discussions in class frequently sparked fresh insights into the challenges I encounter professionally, and my own work experiences enriched my understanding of the course content. Overall, my experience at Booth has been transformative. It has given me a sense of confidence and resilience that I take forward in both my personal and professional life.
Stephanie Hwu, an Executive MBA student at Booth’s Chicago campus, is a senior manager of systems engineering at Becton Dickinson in San Francisco Bay Area, California. In this role, Stephanie leads a R&D team of engineers and scientists in developing state-of-the-art instruments for research and diagnostics. She holds a BSc in biomedical sciences and a MSc in applied physics from the University of Geneva and a PhD in biomedical engineering from ETH Zurich.