Simera Negeri, MIB’19
- Undergrad: Bachelor of International Business, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Canada
- MIB program: Double degree with University of Queensland, Australia
- Simera’s MIB experience, in a word: “Diverse”
“When you arrive somewhere with no family or friends or networks, you get really close, really fast.”
Like many international students, Simera Negeri knew no one when she arrived at the University of Queensland. She arrived in Australia in 2019—where she was completing a Master of Global Management program, the second stage of a double degree path she’d started with the MIB at Smith a year earlier—eager to connect with her fellow students. Thankfully, she wasn’t the only one. “Something I love about studying abroad is that everybody’s so open to new experiences,” reflects Simera, who had previously studied for a year in Spain as part of her undergrad. “Everybody wants to meet people and go on adventures and really experience everything the country has to offer.”
Not long after arriving in Australia, she took a week-long sailing trip with fellow exchange students, where she snorkelled through the teeming marine life of the famed coral reefs. She watched the incomparable vistas of the outback whirl by as she and a carful of classmates drove west for a camping trip. And in one especially memorable instance, she and a school friend decided to have an impromptu beach picnic, where they encountered an adorable—but peckish—joey. “This kangaroo was not here for it. He wanted our lunch, and he really chased us around in circles for it,” Simera laughs. “I remember thinking ‘wow, this is a trip.’”
If friendships were kindled in the classroom, they were forged outside of it. And learning to navigate these new relationships in new settings was every bit as instructive as anything in the curriculum. “I’ll always be the first person to recommend international experience to everybody, in as many ways as it can be done,” Simera says. “Knowing more about the world is always a good thing. Understanding different types of people is always a good thing. It only benefits you.”
Simera started her MIB at Smith, the first part of her two-degree program, just a few months after undergrad. She had finished the fourth year of her Bachelor of International Business with a sense of unfinished business; she felt she was just starting to hit her stride, educationally, and wanted to absorb more before starting her career. She liked the idea of two degrees in two years, and she loved the idea of studying with other recent grads: “It removed any sense of imposter syndrome.”
Through two years of working with classmates in every context—from developing case studies in Goodes Hall, to debating management strategy in a Brisbane classroom, to the decidedly more ad-hoc problem-solving of outrunning a hangry marsupial—Simera became a confident collaborator. In her current profession helping clients assess and manage risk for a global consultancy, this skill has proven indispensable.
“I feel like I am prepared to work with just about any type of personality, because I’ve worked with someone like that in some way,” Simera says. “I’ve seen so many business issues from different perspectives and had the chance to apply what I’ve learned in so many contexts. It prepared me so well for what I do today.”
