By the time Phuong-Nghi Pham graduated high school in Boston, Massachusetts, she had already been featured twice on a national music radio show and performed piano onstage with the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall. It was not yet apparent that these experiences would come full-circle later in her career and serve as defining influences on her journey to get an MBA.

Matching to Amherst College through QuestBridge made it affordable for her to attend college as a first-generation college student from a low-income background. At Amherst, Phuong-Nghi quickly demonstrated she was more than a talented musician: she triple majored in Psychology, Music, and English — and even became the first at her college to complete three senior theses. Thinking she might eventually want to explore a Ph.D. in Psychology, she spent the year after college as a Fulbright Fellow focusing on music cognition, hoping to determine if becoming a researcher was the right fit for her.

While the year was filled with meaningful experience, Phuong-Nghi felt unsure of her next steps and put her Ph.D. dreams on hold. “As a researcher, I felt most energized when interacting directly with participants, but felt disconnected from ‘real-world’ results,” she shares. Instead, she decided to join the staff of the radio show that once featured her. As she navigated a range of nonprofit functions at From the Top, Phuong-Nghi developed new perspectives. “As a project manager at a music nonprofit, I had my hands full with implementation, but saw how different internal and external dynamics can grow or stifle an idea,” she says.

Through further hours of introspection and networking, Phuong-Nghi made her next pivot to social impact consulting. This work complimented her skillset and allowed her to contribute to issues close to her heart, like economic mobility and building career pathways for underserved communities.

Always curious, and “a generalist at heart,” Phuong-Nghi’s winding path had a common thread — building competency and leadership skills in a range of fields to ultimately position her to find a career that is both “financially sustaining and meaningful.”

Her journey has most recently led her to attend the Yale School of Management through the QuestBridge Graduate School Match: MBA. With her nonprofit and social impact consulting background, Phuong-Nghi was a natural fit to lead the Net Impact Club and the First-Gen Low-Income Club (FLI) at Yale SOM. FLI provided a space for Phuong-Nghi to be her authentic self while being in community with others who were also navigating the MBA experience. As a leader in the Net Impact Club, she helped organize Social Impact Week, bringing together students, alumni, and social entrepreneurs across every sector to explore what it means to make a difference.

“I wanted my peers pursuing banking, tech, consulting, and other traditional paths to see that their past experiences and the skills they are honing here at SOM are powerful tools for mission-driven work.”

Now equipped with her MBA, she is joining the consulting team at Bain where she will work at the intersection of strategy and operations. “I have made a number of career pivots already, and one of my biggest takeaways is that there are always new things you have to “unlock” or learn to be comfortable with to get to the next stage. While I will always bring my grit and discipline forward, I’m also on the lookout for how to continue growing,” she shares.