When I first joined diiVe I had no idea what to expect. I had just finished a tough summer with a local nonprofit and needed a change of pace. Even more, I needed direction. Clarity. My summer had left me with nothing but questions and a clear idea of what I didn’t want to do for the rest of my life. Luckily for me, Angela, one of my coworkers over the summer, had just learned about and signed up for a program she called diiVe.
diiVe was a completely new adventure for me — a consulting internship, and one hosted in Cape Town at that. Up until that summer, I had never considered a future career in consulting with any sincerity, but I had heard vaguely of the skills consultants got to practice everyday and the opportunities they had to explore almost any industry. I have always been curious, and the prospect of being able to learn so much while creating innovative solutions to modern problems was extremely exciting. And so, I found myself applying to diiVe not soon after Angela first told me about it. And not too long after that, I found myself signing on to my very first diiVe cohort meeting.
Nothing could have prepared me for these past three weeks. In my first week alone I not only got to learn about multiple branches of consulting, but I also got to meet an amazing group of dedicated mentors, inspiring speakers, and of course, a welcoming community of fellow diiVe interns. All of the stereotypes I had heard about consulting in my years at Harvard melted away. Where I cynically braced myself for a glorification of boiler-plate business solutions and affirmation of the importance of profit margins, I found lessons on the profound change-making ability of consultants and the subsequent responsibility they had to produce shared-value, sustainable solutions.
Where I expected to have to learn how to swallow my morals for the sake of a client, I found affirmations from real professionals that one’s consulting work could in fact be a way to practice one’s values. diiVe taught me that consulting doesn’t have to be about selling yourself out, but buying in. Buying in to who your values and strengths to collaboratively create something new!
Ethan Tran is a junior at Harvard College concentrating in Sociology with a secondary in Computer Science. He is interested in nonprofits and philanthropy, data visualization, and video games.
