I am a series of small victories and large defeats, and I am as amazed as any other that I have gotten from there to here.
—Charles Bukwoski
Master of Me
A 3-Year Journal Entry [Finally]
The past five years of my life have been spent in school. Two master’s degrees. At some point, at the same time. There were a few small wins. There were plenty large defeates. The pressure. The pace. The pushing. The moments where things didn’t hold. The moments where I didn’t hold.
The biggest thing that was defeated in this stretch was my ego.
I have always been competitive. I like to win. I like being the best.
That shows up in everything I do. School. Work. Leadership.
For most of my life, I was in environments where that worked. I was trusted to lead. People listened. Things moved.
I didn’t spend much time adjusting to others. I moved fast. I decided quickly. I pushed when things slowed down. If something needed direction, I gave it.
That worked for about a decade of my life. Long enough that I didn’t question it.
Summer, 2023
My pursuit of an MBA was nowhere in my plans. If you know anything about me, you will be surprised to find that I actually do not have much of a plan.
My stab at an MBA started with an email.
August 28, 2023. Michigan State University. Invitation to explore their MBA program. I had never been to Michigan.
I mentioned it to my best friend in New York, Heather. She reminded me that was this was where she went to undergrad. She said I should go and see it.
It felt casual at the time. Something to look into.
Fall, 2023
I landed in Detroit on the 5th of October, 2023, and connected a flight into Lansing. First time on such a large University campus.
I attended the Michigan State’s Diversity Preview Day. I liked it immediately. The people. The space. The way it felt to be there. It didn’t feel forced.
I could see myself in it. Moving through it. Doing well in it.
I left knowing I would take it seriously.
After that visit, I did what you’re supposed to do. I explored other programs. I took tours with all the Universities in New York where I lived, and beyond. I prepared for the GMAT. I tried to understand whether an MBA made sense for me.
At the time, I was already completing a Master’s in Entrepreneurship. I wasn’t looking for another degree for the sake of it. I was trying to decide if it would move anything forward.
I was thinking about direction. About where I wanted to be. About what would actually matter after the degree.
Winter, 2023
During the winter of 2023, just into January, I visited Malawi, on my way to Maputo with my Ntha Foundation twam. I always do this: visit home when I am invited to the continent. It was on that visit that I made the decision to apply to MSU.
After all, what did I have to lose? It was just an application.
I was used to stepping into new environments and figuring them out quickly. I expected this to be the same.
By March, I had my answer. I was accepted. I had a 60% scholarship.
I spoke to my dad. I wasn’t fully decided on going back to school yet. He asked me what I had to lose.
I committed. Paid part of the tuition. Moved forward.
I don’t wait for everything to be clear before I decide. I move when I have enough to go on.
Spring, 2024
At the end of April, my time with the United Nations came to an end.
It was a clean break to me. One chapter closed, quite abruptly so. My next, not so clear. I had incorporated Ntha Foundation as a 501[c][3] in the U.S., and I was… going… home?
After the UN, I had two trips planned.
I went to Harvard for their MBA open day. Then I went to Michigan State for admitted students day. I saw both up close. Different environments. Different energy.
I compared them properly: specifically how they felt to be in.
From a community and soul perspective, MSU won. Clearly. Lorraine calls MSU a cult. I think she is right in a sense: MSU has SOUL!
I went back home with a real decision to make. Wait a year and apply to Harvard, or accept Michigan State and move forward.
I already knew I wanted to learn more about ag tech. I knew the direction I was interested in. MSU made sense for that.
I chose MSU.
Summer, 2024
I went back to Malawi.
I spent those months in motion. Networking events. Working on my businesses. Staying active in everything I had already built.
There wasn’t a slow lead into school. No winding down. No clean transition.
I carried everything I was already doing right up to the point of leaving.
In July, I landed back in the United States.
I wrapped up my life in Manhattan, stayed a few days with my friend in Brooklyn; and then shipped my little life to Michigan.
I remember arriving and saying it to myself. I’m back in school.
It felt familiar. Work hard. Perform. Do well. Move forward.
That had worked before. I expected it to work again.
A few days before everything started, I took a DISC assessment.
It came back clear: Dominant. Fast-paced. Direct. Independent. Results-oriented.
I am naturally the kind of person who moves quickly, makes decisions, pushes forward, and doesn’t spend much time waiting for consensus.
It also pointed to the other side of that. Blunt under pressure. High expectations. Preference for control. Less patience for slow processes or unclear direction.
I read it, noted it, and moved on.
I didn’t know how much it would explain what was coming.
Fall, 2024
The Fall 2024 was perhaps most pivotal to my being.
I started the MBA while I was still finishing my first master’s.
The schedule was not sustainable. Midnight assignments for finance and accounting. Up again at 3 a.m. for thesis work. Messages coming in about submissions before the day even started. Then class.
I would sit in lectures with emails open, responding to my team, trying to keep everything moving. Business, school, thesis. All at once.
I wasn’t managing it. I was forcing it.
That’s how I had always worked. Take on more. Move faster. Push harder. Keep things under control.
For a long time, that approach worked.
Here, it didn’t.
At some point, I started breaking. Not all at once. Just enough to notice that something wasn’t holding the way it used to.
Effort wasn’t translating the same way. Control wasn’t as complete as I thought it was.
That was new.
Accounting was hard. Finance was hard.
Not in a distant way. In a very immediate way. Sitting in class, trying to follow, realizing I wasn’t moving as quickly as I was used to.
I was learning my strengths and weaknesses in real time. There wasn’t space to prepare for it. It was just there.
I was trying. Fully. Showing up, doing the work, pushing through it.
Parts of the MBA challenged me technically. That was clear.
But the deeper challenge wasn’t the content. It was what happens when your usual speed meets something that doesn’t move for you.
MSc Graduation
Somehow, I made it.
I came out of an exam, got onto a flight, and went straight into a graduation hall. I received my master’s degree from the Malawi University of Science and Technology.
I had wanted that degree. For a long time.
It was one of the happiest days of my life.
Then I got back on a plane, returned to Michigan, and went straight back into class.
Joy and exhaustion were sitting in the same place.
Outside of the pressure, there was everything else.
New people. New friendships. New routines. Being back in a classroom in a completely different environment.
I was learning more about myself just by being in it. Not in isolation, but in relation to other people. Different backgrounds, different ways of thinking, different ways of moving.
The MBA wasn’t only pressure. It was exposure.
I was meeting people I couldn’t immediately read. People who were just as strong in their own ways. That changed the dynamic.
Teams
This is the part I didn’t enjoy.
The MBA is built around teams. Group work, shared projects, collective outcomes. You don’t move alone.
I am very good as a leader. That has never been a question.
But when I am on a team and I am not leading, something shifts. I withdraw. Almost immediately.
I work best when I am setting direction. Or when I am working alone. Shared control has never come naturally to me.
That didn’t change just because I was in an MBA.
Collaboration was hard. Not occasionally. Consistently.
I had already taken a DISC assessment before the program started. Dominant. Fast-paced. Direct. Independent. It all made sense on paper.
In practice, it meant I moved quickly, made decisions easily, and didn’t always wait for alignment. Under pressure, it also meant I could be blunt. Critical. Focused on outcomes more than how people felt getting there.
The MBA didn’t turn me into someone who loves collaboration.
It made me aware of how I operate inside it.
I was no longer the default leader in every room. I was working with peers who could also lead, who had their own ways of thinking, their own standards, their own pace.
For the first time, I had to see myself not just from inside, but from the outside.
To the teams I worked with, I know I could be a lot.
Direct. Fast. Sometimes too forceful. Not always collaborative in the way people expect.
I understand that better now.
Not as something to be ashamed of, but something to be aware of. How I move affects other people. Even when the intention is to get to the best outcome.
I am still working through what that looks like going forward.
Career-Building
Alongside everything else, I was still taking on more.
I applied for a role as a career liaison with the Russell Palmer Career Management Center. I got it.
Around the same time, there was an opening for a graduate assistantship with the College of Engineering. I applied. I got that too.
I couldn’t do both. I had to choose.
I chose Engineering.
I have worked in that role through 2025 into 2026.
Even in an environment that was challenging me in new ways, I was still being trusted with responsibility. Still stepping into roles where I was expected to contribute, to lead, to deliver.
That was never the issue.
The question was how all of that fit together.
Rwanda
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I was invited to Rwanda.
I spoke at the Youth Connect Summit. One of the speakers. Big room. Full audience. People listening.
It was one of those moments where everything clicks. You know what you’re saying. You know how to hold a room. You move through it without hesitation.
People came up after. Conversations carried. The energy stayed.
Outside the classroom, the way I naturally operate still worked. Speaking. Moving quickly. Setting direction. Commanding space.
It made the experience inside the MBA feel even sharper. In one place, things moved easily. In another, I had to slow down in ways I wasn’t used to.
Recruiting
I didn’t recruit much.
I applied to about two companies. Interviewed with Microsoft. That was it.
By November, I had my offer. Microsoft Xbox.
When I came back for the next semester, I already knew where I was going. I was locked in.
Some systems still moved the way I expected them to. You show up, you perform, you get the outcome.
That part of me still worked.
Winter, 2024
Winter slowed everything down.
For the first time in two years, I paused. No movement between countries. No major transitions. No constant shifting.
I spent November, December, and January going through everything I had done over the past two years. Posting content I hadn’t had time to share. Looking at my own work from a distance.
It was the first time I sat with it.
Not just what had happened, but how I had been moving through it.
By January, I was back in class.
Most people around me knew me as a student. That’s what they saw. That’s what the environment allowed.
They didn’t really know the rest of it. The businesses. The work outside. The scale of what I was managing beyond the classroom.
I was carrying more than what was visible in that space.
Spring, 2025
The semester moved forward.
Classes, assignments, group work, everything continuing in rhythm. Winter settling in properly. Days structured around the program again.
There’s not much to say about that part. It moved the way semesters do. One week into the next.
At some point in that stretch, I went to Spain.
Spring in Spain. Part of the program. Different setting, different pace, same people.
It added to the experience. Another environment layered into the year.
Then it was back.
At some point in that stretch, my thesis was published.
I remember seeing my undergraduate students graduating around the same time. Watching them walk across that stage while I was still in it, still pushing through my own program.
Things were ending and starting at the same time. Nothing was neatly separated. One milestone didn’t wait for the next.
I stayed in motion.
26.
From 2025 into 2026, I was working with the College of Engineering.
It wasn’t a side role. It became a real part of the experience. Showing up, supporting students, being part of something structured while still figuring things out myself.
Even while I was learning, I was also guiding.
Even while I was being challenged, I was still in positions where I had to show up for others.
The MBA was never just sitting in class.
Summer, 2025
In May, I went to Microsoft.
Redmond. Xbox. A different scale of everything.
That summer changed how I see the world. Not in theory. In reality.
I was inside systems that actually work at scale. Teams, infrastructure, execution, all moving in ways I had only thought about before.
I got into the game space. Simulation. Environments that don’t just exist physically, but are built, tested, and refined before they ever show up in the real world.
It stretched my thinking.
Walking through Redmond, seeing an entire city built around one company, one ecosystem, I started thinking differently about what can be built. Not just ideas, but systems.
It made things feel bigger. More possible. More real.
Summer, 2025
At the same time, I was writing.
I had committed to publishing my books. Not later. Now.
I finished Feminine Silence. I wrote Traversing Your Terrible 20s. I brought my first book into the world.
By the time I turned 30 in August, I had published three.
That work didn’t sit on the side of everything else. It moved with it.
I wasn’t only studying systems. I was producing my own.
In August, I got the news.
No return offer from Microsoft Xbox.
It broke me.
Not because I needed the offer. But because things had followed a pattern for a long time. You show up. You perform. You get the result.
This time, that didn’t happen.
There’s a moment when something like that lands and you can feel the gap between what you expected and what is.
I sat in that.
And then I moved.
If I wasn’t going to be absorbed into a system, then I would build my own.
In September, I was back at the United Nations General Assembly.
Different position this time.
I was carrying my books. Talking to anyone who would listen. Sharing work that was mine.
Not representing an institution. Representing myself.
It felt different. Not louder. Just clearer.
I was starting to understand what it looks like to walk into those rooms with something of your own in your hands.
Fall, 2025
When I came back for the next semester, I went all in on Q2.
There wasn’t hesitation around it. I knew where my energy needed to go.
I wanted to build. Not just contribute. Not just be part of something. Build.
Q2 became the focus. And it challenged me in every way. Structurally, mentally, strategically. There’s nothing clean about building something from the ground up. Every assumption gets tested.
The MBA didn’t just prepare me to enter systems. It sharpened me for building my own.
Not getting the return offer didn’t close anything. It redirected everything.
Spring, 2026
By the time I got into 2026, I wasn’t in a good place. I had just done a pitch competition. I didn’t win. First time since 2019.
It hit harder than it should have. Or maybe exactly as hard as it needed to.
Around the same time, I had recently gotten my heart broken. Everything felt off. Everything.
I remember sitting with that feeling for a few months, not knowing what to do next. I felt really stuck.
In January, I got a call with the news that I had been selected for the inaugural Detroit Tech Fellowship. I was one of eight selected.
The terms were simple. Move to Detroit. Build from there. The city covers living for the year.
A few weeks later, I got news that I had also been selected for the Rockefeller Big Bets Fellowship.
I needed these two specific affirmation.
At that point, I had gone deep into what I wanted to build. Simulation. Digital twins. Robotics. Systems that don’t sit on the surface. Things that take time, capital, and patience.
It’s easy to say you’re building. It’s harder when what you’re building doesn’t look like anything around you.
Detroit would give me structure: a place to build. Rockefeller would grant me community: people to build with.
Together, they gave me something to stand on.
At the end of February, I completed my MBA coursework [7 weeks early], anf I moved.
I’ve spent the last three months in Detroit. Reading histories. Walking the city. Taking meetings. Asking questions. Trying to understand how things actually work on the ground.
Q2 is what I’m building.
I’m not trying to overstate it. It’s early. It’s hard. It’s still taking shape.
I’ve been meeting with investors. Thinking through what this becomes, not just what it is right now.
At the same time, I finished the MBA.
I came back home. And I stopped.
I’ve wish to spend about a month resting. Sitting still.
Right now, I’m in my house. And I don’t feel ready to leave it yet.
But I am ready for what’s next.
Q2 is where that starts. Soon. Very soon. For now, some rent.
All love,
Ntha
Master of None
The MBA taught me a lot.
It taught me about myself.
I understand my natural set point more clearly now. The speed, the urgency, the need to move, to decide, to control direction. I see where that works and where it breaks. I see the cost of it. Not just for me, but for the people around me.
I understand what my leadership can feel like from the other side.
It taught me about peers.
Working with people at your level is different. You don’t default into leadership. You have to negotiate it. Or sit without it. That’s a different experience when you’re used to setting direction.
Collaboration has a cost. Especially when you’re wired to move quickly and independently. I had to learn to observe more. Not just act.
It taught me about the world.
Beyond Malawi. Beyond the UN. Beyond development frameworks.
The private sector is different when you are inside it. Real systems. Real incentives. Real scale. Things move based on what works, not what sounds good.
It made things more concrete.
The MBA did not change who I am.
It didn’t make me suddenly enjoy collaboration. It didn’t remove my need for control. It didn’t soften me.
It made me aware.
I see how I move. I see how that affects outcomes. I see how that affects people.
That awareness changes how I think about leading going forward.
There are still things I am figuring out.
I still know I work best when I am leading or working alone.
I still don’t fully know what it looks like to sit in a team where I am not setting direction and stay fully engaged.
That’s not resolved.
Awareness doesn’t complete the process. It just makes it visible.
I come back to the same line.
Small victories. Large defeats. Amazement.
I didn’t leave the MBA as a different person.
I left knowing myself more clearly.
Still ambitious. Still dominant. Still moving forward.
Now with a better understanding of what that costs. What it builds. And what it asks of the people around me.
Yours,
Nthanda Manduwi—Msc, MBA
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