B-School Life November 19, 2009, 12:30PM EST

Zigzagging to Business School

"I am attending business school as a career changer, to build a platform from which I can better explore my options and clarify my values"

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I am not your typical MBA student. I chuckle thinking about the havoc I will wreak on the incoming class pie charts that the admissions office will prepare at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business (McDonough Full-Time MBA School Profile), where I will start this fall. How will they categorize a gay Bosnian Muslim refugee, a former chemist who writes about sexuality in Islam while counseling college students?

A tarot card reader once told me my path would not be a straight one. Academically, professionally, and personally, I have travelled the zigzagging line of someone who hasn't decided what he wants to be when he grows up and who is liberated by not knowing his direction. I am attending business school as a career changer, to build a platform from which I can better explore my options and clarify my values. In the times when the zigzagging seems a bit schizophrenic, I am comforted by flashbacks from Slumdog Millionaire: the sum of these diverse experiences has given me many of the answers I need in life, and I expect them to continue doing so as I change my career.

My journey started in April 1992 on scaffolding over the blown-up bridge leading out of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where my family was fleeing as war refugees. I try to imagine what my 13-year-old self would have thought if shown a preview of his next 17 years. My life now would sound like science fiction to that scared boy without home or country.

Burdened by 9/11 Fears

Who would have thought that my family would be forced to leave our urban apartment and live for four years in a rural, abandoned house with no indoor plumbing but with plenty of rats? Or that I would leave my family behind, arriving in the U.S. by myself at age 17? That I would then be fortunate enough to live in some of the world's greatest cities, including San Francisco, New York, Boston, and now Washington, D.C.? That America, this land of opportunity, would make me feel incredibly accepted, having been essentially adopted by friends and their families? Or that this same America, burdened by post 9/11 fears, would reject me as I continue to struggle with harsh immigration policies?

Most of the zigs in my zigzagging path come from recommendations. Coming to the U.S., deciding on a college, becoming a science major, studying religion—all these choices can be traced to specific conversations with friends, family, and mentors. Do events unfold because of destiny or do things simply fall into my lap? Either way, I have learned the power of reflecting out loud; as a process-oriented extrovert, it's just the way I make decisions.

The inspiration for business school started during a heart-to-heart with a good friend in the summer of 2008. It was a tough year for me, more challenging than a refugee diet of Red Cross rations. I was about to turn 30 and suddenly had no direction. At times, I wondered if every decision I had made since graduating college had been wrong, a horrible detour from somewhere else I was supposed to be. Fixing all her tough love into a stern look, my friend pointed out business school as a way to carve my own path.

Stuck Without Options

The year of soul-searching started when my employer, a Boston-area university, told me it would not sponsor my green card application. Most people don't realize immigrants cannot simply declare their intent to become citizens, but must go through a lengthy process of finding sponsorship, mostly through marriage or work. I started feeling rejected and unwanted, not only by the workplace I truly loved but by my adopted country as a whole. I tried job searching elsewhere, but several more organizations pulled their job offers once they discovered I was an immigrant. Before that influential conversation, I was stuck without options.

Before last year, I had not given business school much consideration. I have explored many interests through the years, but I never thought business was for me. I have worked as a lumberjack, a lab research assistant, and a career counselor, have presented at a Harry Potter conference, and I am being published in a book on homosexuality in Islam. I just never pictured myself in an accounting classroom. Once my friend planted the MBA bug, however, I researched, assessed, reflected, and was surprised to find that my work history, values, and professional ambitions completely aligned with the direction in which an MBA could take me.