In Mexico, 9 April

"Love (and Life) in times of COVID-19

Hi there! Carlos from Mexico here. I happen to be a graduate of the first class of the MBA all the way back in 1998-1999. I still consider my time in the Graduate School as defining in my life due to the great study program, teachers, and my classmates (and still great friends!).

Coronavirus was a bit of a foreign word to us in Mexico at first, something happening all the way in the far east. Like out of a movie that would never reach us. Later, just a couple of weeks pass by, and we’re now co-starring in this worldwide drama!!

In my personal experience, me and my family had to do plenty of adapting to the self-imposed quarantine. We work and study from home now and share more time together than ever before! I guess we can count that as a blessing. We’ve managed to set a nice schedule to keep ourselves busy and distracted. It definitely has its challenges, but it has also brought us an opportunity to bond with those close to us and with the people we know thanks to social media and technology.

Speaking of which, even though us graduates from the 98-99 class have kept in touch with each other for some time now, in these last few weeks our communication has definitely increased! we have shared our personal experiences and day to day issues now that we must adapt to this current COVID-19 situation. We live in different countries and under different personal situations; but we still go through pretty much the same experiences (social distancing, bored at home, lack of toilet paper (?), among other things), somehow, this makes everything more bearable and we try to keep each other cheered up!

Back in the MBA, the world seemed bigger than it does now. Meeting people from so many different countries made me realize that even with all our differences in nationality, language, race and culture, we’re all very similar at our core. We’re facing a historical challenge (I hate calling it “crisis”) that should be a good reminder of that… in the end, we’re all people!

So, go ahead, get through this situation, how? That’s up to you, I would recommend you wash your hands, follow the advice from your health officials, wash your hands, use common sense, get informed, wash your hands, but most important, COOPERATE! Don’t get in the way of other people helping out!

For the girls and guys going through your MBA right now, what can I say? You have one thing to make your experience even more memorable!!! Keep a positive attitude and here from my self-confinement I wish you all the best!... now, if you’ll allow… I need to go wash my hands…"