This Pride Month we want to highlight the importance of our vibrant and inclusive student club that celebrates and advocates for the LGBTQ+ community, PRIDE. PRIDE is a safe space where our students and their partners can express themselves freely, be their authentic selves and create friendships that last long after they have graduated. Together they work to build community, foster professional development, and encourage advocacy for LGBTQ+ representation at our school and in business. Check out some current student and alum perspectives on PRIDE and let their words inspire us all to continue fostering an environment of love, acceptance, and celebration of diversity within HBS and beyond.
Oscar Yuan (MBA 2003)
PRIDE at HBS was, for me, a respite and a refuge. Attending HBS at a time when being LGBT and a business person were not necessarily congruous parts of my identity, I was able to build connections with members of the community that I was able to be myself with. Putting on a “straight face” all week while we discussed cases and worked on problem sets could be exhausting; it was with the group from HBS PRIDE that I was truly able to be myself, talking about our relationships, watch the latest Sex and the City episode (yes, the original series on HBO, before there was streaming), and venture out into the gay nightlife scene in Boston. HBS PRIDE helped me to be a whole person at HBS – celebrating both the business side of my identity and the LGBT side. To this day, almost 25 years later, I still count the connections I made through HBS PRIDE as my closest friends and confidantes.
Kelly Bojic (MBA 2024)
PRIDE at HBS is my second home. I’ve made lifelong friends through PRIDE who have shown up for me during the ups and downs of my first year at HBS. They are the people I gravitate to outside of the classroom, in new countries, and especially on the dance floor. They are the people whom I invite over for a lazy Saturday or call to ask about relationship advice and take absurd selfies with.
Being part of PRIDE has also given me more confidence to embrace my identity and show up in other spaces at HBS as my true self, knowing I have a strong community supporting me. I’m excited to see how PRIDE further grows as a community and for the relationships I’ll continue to build next year.
Min Kwon (MBA 2024
To me, PRIDE at HBS is a community of friends I am forever thankful for. It’s been so affirming and validating to have a community that shares a sense of empathy and actively engages in supporting one another. The friends I’ve made through PRIDE are ones I chat with about exploring my own queerness and how it has evolved since I came out; they’re friends I’ve leaned on for support when I felt overwhelmed; most importantly, they’re friends I feel completely and unabashedly myself around. I’m also constantly awe-struck and inspired by the queer excellence – whether it’s professional or community-focused – and am so thankful that I have such accomplished friends who motivate and challenge me. Undoubtedly, my HBS experience would have been so much lonelier without my PRIDE friends, and I cannot imagine campus without them!
Prospective students, admits, and pre-matriculants wishing to learn more about PRIDE and the larger queer community at HBS, Harvard, and/or Boston, please reach out to pride@studentclubs.hbs.edu and your message will be forwarded to the club’s Admissions Liaisons team of current MBA students.