Bayley Wivell (B’22) is graduating from the McDonough School of Business this spring. Throughout her four years at Georgetown, she’s interned in the Philippines, performed in Georgetown’s all-female a capella group and presented to Uber Spain in Madrid. This fall, she’ll teach English in Taiwan as a Fulbright Scholar.
Before she enrolled in Georgetown, Wivell was torn between two schools. In this first-person account, Wivell invites readers on her journey as a Hoya – from opening an admissions envelope in her high school parking lot to preparing to say goodbye to the Hilltop.
Her Parking Lot Acceptance Video
My letter came a day late. My mom texted me a picture of it while I was in class. I was so nervous and tense all day knowing it was sitting in my mailbox.
I had to stay late for play rehearsal that day, so my mom asked if she could drive over the letter.
We sat in the parking lot of my high school, and my mom started recording me. When I got to the sentence that said I was accepted, I was so happy. I couldn’t contain my excitement. I’m glad my mom captured it.
Why She Chose Georgetown
I was torn between two schools. Both were business schools. Financial aid was the same. I kept updating my pros and cons list. I was driving everyone crazy.
It came down to where I saw myself having a better personal fit.
I had grown up in China and was drawn to international business. I learned Georgetown had a Global Business Fellowship and classes for exactly what I wanted to study. I loved the idea of studying and living in DC. And everyone I met at Georgetown was so passionate about being a Hoya. It made me want to be a Hoya with them.
In the end, I realized I could see myself at Georgetown and being friends with and learning from the people I interacted with there. It was the best choice I could have made.
“Nowhere else could have offered the academic and professional opportunities I wanted to pursue here.”
–Bayley Wivell (B’22)
A Pre-School Business Immersion
At the start of my Georgetown journey, I was in the Business Undergraduates Invested in Leadership Development (BUILD) pre-orientation program. I came to school a week and a half early and went to faculty and dean lectures for all the business majors.
I experienced the great mentorship network within the McDonough School of Business, and I went on numerous corporate visits. It showed me what studying business entails and the opportunities that lie beyond Georgetown. It affirmed that this was exactly where I needed to be.
The Ins and Outs of Her First Year
Wivell (top left) with fellow members of the Asian American Student Association.
There were so many things to soak up on campus — and I excitedly joined way too many clubs my first year. Notably, I was in the Georgetown Gracenotes A Capella group and the Asian American Student Association. I’m half Chinese and I don’t come from a town with a lot of diversity, so getting to go to these events and speak Mandarin and eat Chinese food with people was really refreshing.
Being on the cast of Georgetown Stories all four years is my proudest achievement at Georgetown. Watching Georgetown Stories helped me during my college decision process — I looked up to all the storytellers who were so authentically themselves and let prospective students in on their daily lives in college, so I wanted to do that for students to come.
I was also in the Georgetown Marketing Association, Mask & Bauble, Georgetown Women in Leadership — I dipped my toes into a lot of different communities to see what would be the best fit.
When I joined the Compass Fellowship (Georgetown’s chapter of Social Impact 360), which is a social entrepreneurship club, it got me interested in social impact.
An Internship in the Philippines
A mentor from the social entrepreneurship club encouraged me to apply for a fellowship through the Beeck Center for Social Impact. I matched with an internship in the Philippines that involved cultural immersion, community engagement and environmental sustainability.
I’m passionate about how businesses interact with local communities and was eager to explore more of East Asia. While there, I developed marketing strategies for an ecotourism luxury resort and worked with its environmental team on sustainability initiatives. I participated in beach cleanups every week and helped educate staff and guests about the resort’s sustainability efforts.
I learned about the biodiversity in Southeast Asia and intercultural communication. I learned about the strength of the Georgetown community abroad. And I learned how the private and public sectors can collaborate to preserve and engage with the local community and with the people who are indigenous to the land.
It was the most formative experience I’ve ever had and informed my interest in consulting.
Exploring International Business in Undergrad
Wivell attends a career trek in New York City through the Global Business Fellowship in 2020.
I came back from the Philippines my sophomore year and applied for Georgetown Global Consulting (GGC), a student-run organization that provides pro bono consulting for nonprofits. Through GGC, I found that so many organizations have great missions, but many times, the private sector has the power, capital and connections to local governments to implement an idea. Consulting firms can act as that direct link to leave a sustainable impact. GGC informed my decision to pursue a career in consulting. As a board member in the organization, it also fostered great leadership skills useful for my professional development.
I also applied to the Global Business Fellowship my sophomore year, a program between the McDonough School of Business (MSB) and the Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) that offers cross-disciplinary courses and extracurricular opportunities. It gave me a great network of people I can turn to for advice, and it gave me graduate-level classes that stood out the most in my Georgetown career.
For the fellowship’s senior capstone course, we worked on a semester-long consulting project that we presented in Madrid, Spain, over spring break. Our client was Uber Spain. We went to classes every day at Esade Business School’s Madrid campus, and we went to the Uber office for meetings and work. It was super cool watching the Uber team work in real-time throughout the semester and being able to apply a lot of what we do in the Business School case studies.
After the Hilltop
In 2021, Wivell visited McKinsey’s offices in New York City with other Hoyas working at McKinsey post-grad.
I have accepted a consulting job with McKinsey and am very excited to start my career there. I also just received a Fulbright Scholarship in Taiwan for the 2022-2023 academic year. McKinsey is letting me defer my start date by one year to complete the Fulbright before joining the firm full-time. I am excited for my upcoming year as a Fulbright scholar as well as the opportunity to come back to McKinsey in 2023.
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Looking back on my four years, I wouldn’t have done it any differently. There were definitely moments during COVID-19 when I missed being on campus, surrounded by my communities, and I was so sad. But all in all, I’ve gained so much professionally and personally here.
The opportunities at Georgetown are endless. You just have to seize them. I’m proud of what I was able to achieve here. It was all very worth it.
Wivell (far right) is a tour guide and director of outreach for the Blue & Gray Tour Guide Society.
