Kenza Moussaoui Rahali ’26

During my medical training, I did a couple of rotations in the U.S. and met people who were innovating and investing in healthcare in different ways. I realized that I could have a greater impact on patients if I combined my finance and medical background with an education in management and entrepreneurship. That’s why I decided against residency and pursued a business degree instead.

The Master’s in Global Business and Society program opens a lot of doors and offers incredible access to professors who are leaders in their fields. I’m doing the dual-degree program with HEC Paris, and it’s been a great opportunity to build my international network and see how business is done around the world.

I was impressed by the program’s flexibility. Even with the GBS curriculum and the additional requirements I took on to complete the optional STEM major, there’s lots of room to take classes that interest me. I’ve been able to focus on specialized courses in AI and entrepreneurship, alongside healthcare topics I’m deeply passionate about, such as Innovation, Investments, and New Frontiers in Medicine and Narrative in Health Media.

I took Introduction to AI Applications at Yale College last semester, along with a large language model course and a software development class, and ended up coding three different applications, two aimed at improving student life and one focused on addressing medical misinformation on social media. It’s not something I had ever planned on doing, but I’m so happy I did. Those skills are really valuable in today’s job market, and I’m able to understand technical conversations much better.

Outside of the classroom, SOM offers countless opportunities to explore interests in practice. Last fall, my team and I won the Yale Venture Capital Investment Competition, and we’ll be representing Yale in the regional competition at Dartmouth later this year. Through Yale Ventures, I also participated in my first hackathon, where my team and I won the Yale–New Haven Health Innovation Prize. Through Nucleate, a startup activator for ventures in the biotech and life science realm, I joined an early-stage startup as a business and clinical contributor. As part of the activator’s finalist cohort, I’m looking forward to connecting with potential investors and receiving guidance on taking the venture to its next stage.

My time here has given me more clarity on what I’m good at, what skills are needed in the marketplace, and how to take tangible steps to reach my goals. SOM’s community is among the best I’ve encountered in higher education—and I’ve been in this space for a decade! Everyone is kind, supportive, and deeply engaged, and there are so many people with great backgrounds to learn from.