I Showed Up for Free Food. I Stayed for Everything Else.

BY: MAURITS E. ACOSTA ’28

I vividly remember my friend asking me to join him for a Visitas mixer featuring free food on Felipe’s rooftop. I said yes because, who doesn't like free food? As I passed the merch table and CBE-themed banner to make my way to the taco table, I realized just how little I knew about consulting and how distant CBE felt from my interests. Most of the members I spoke to that night were STEM concentrators with desires for careers in finance, technology, pharmaceuticals, computer science, or medicine. A quick online search took me to the CBE website where they highlighted  previous clients like Pfizer, Boeing, and Amazon and proudly displayed their three areas of expertise: technology, life sciences, and sustainability. Needless to say, I felt like CBE was not for me. I knew that I wanted to study government and most of my past extracurricular activities reflected that. I worked on four political campaigns, started a civic education organization, and served as the elected representative to my school board. I knew a little bit about sustainability, a little bit about technology, and probably nothing about the life sciences compared to many of my current peers. I closed the website, forgot about CBE, and carried on with my life for the last few months of my time in high school.

Flash forward to Fall 2025 and the CBE comping process was in full swing. My friends brought me along to a few events and before I knew it I was applying myself. I eventually was brought on as an analyst and am now finishing up my first case. I thought CBE wasn’t for me. I was wrong. It’s easy to get a certain impression of consulting clubs or think that your path and the club’s mission don’t fully align. But it’s even easier to realize all your suspicions were wrong once you actually join and start doing case work. The truth is, the presentation, research, and critical thinking skills that caseworks develops is just as useful to the pre-med student as it would be to someone who is pre-law like myself. By the end of that first week, I understood that my skills in advocacy, presentation, and public speaking complemented, and were just as essential as, my teammates’ strengths in research, data, and analysis. 

Beyond the meaningful contributions I was making for my client, a national nonprofit organization, and the great skills I was developing, what I also found in CBE was a community. A community of people divided by their concentrations, future plans, and origins, but united by a shared sense of ambition, purpose, and genuine care for everyone in the organization. As I reflect on the beginning of my CBE journey, I am just glad that I did not let my doubts hold me back. If you’re reading this and also think that you won’t be the right fit for CBE, I promise you that there’s a space within the organization for you too. Whether it’s through your case team, one of our many affinity groups, or through your sibfam, you will meet amazing people who share your personal and academic goals. What started as a stop for free tacos as a pre-frosh became the start of something that changed my first semester of college. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the best parts of Harvard often begin quietly. Come for the food, but stay for everything that follows.