So, let’s put it straight: Travel, Read, Work, Start a business, Fail, but just don’t go to school!
I say school, but basically I mean - college, university or whatever word is in use for a tertiary educational institution where you come from. Some of it probably applies to secondary education as well, but I’m not talking about it here (attending high school up to a certain age is fortunately or unfortunately for your parents to decide). For the sake of correctness, limit all that I’m saying to Business Schools, as this is where my experience lies in.
Speaking of parents, about two years ago, I had this brilliant idea to do an MBA. I was 29 years old, a grown up you would think. So, I called my mum and I dropped the bomb: “I’m quitting my job. I’m going to study. I’ll go for a year to Paris. I have the money to afford it, so the decision is taken.”
Later that evening they did the voting at home. Two against, one abstained (my little sister). Mother called back next day with a pre-thought speech starting with “It’s the financial crisis, no one quits a job just like that...”. To which I stubbornly replied “Mum, some people quit their jobs to travel the world for a year. I’ll be studying for a year. It’s a serious thing. It’s going to cost a lot of money, but it’s an investment in my future.”
And now, two years later, MBA pocketed, I can say “BULL-SHIT”. Sorry, I rarely use bad words, but I have a message to pass.
And the message is: Travel, Read, Work, Start a business, Fail, but just don’t go to school! Don’t even go near one. If you don’t trust me, read one of the articles by James Altucher, like this one. However, here is MY story, based on the experiences of last year, which indeed I spent in Paris. Studying.
A picture of The Eifel Tower taken with my iPhone, Paris, September 2011
So, here are the three lessons I’ve learnt from doing an MBA.
1. The best thing that happened during my studies, has nothing to do with the school
The best thing that happened to me, in fact to us (my colleagues included) was a trip to Beijing. 10 amazing days in the mega-city! Yes, it was organised by the school, but bear with me till the end of the story.
A picture of The Forbidden City taken with my iPhone, Beijing, November 2011
The whole thing was labeled as ‘business trip’, purpose being to learn about ‘doing business in China’ and we did indeed visit some 'forbidden places' like the Bank of China or Huawei HQ. In true honesty, we talked to interesting people and we had a good sneak behind the curtains of ‘how they [in China] do it’. The question is how useful is this knowledge, and if it is, do you really need to go to a school to get it?
As you might guess by now, my answer is – NO! No, this knowledge is absolutely unpractical and no, you don’t need a mediator to talk to anyone. Not even to a huge corporation in China. Though you might need an interpreter, as not everyone over there speaks English.
To prove my point I have a beautiful story for you.
The best of the trip was an encounter with Arnaud (not sure about his family name). Arnaud is a chocolatier, a real French one. He left his business in Europe in the quest for new experiences. When we met him he had just opened a bakery in Beijing. Arnaud is a friend of a friend of the French girl whom I was sharing a room with in Beijing. These are the type of people you meet when you hang out too much with the French.
Here I open a bracket, so that you know the background of the story.
Most of the people on the trip were Parisians. A side effect of living in Paris is that you truly start to believe that the French are the only ones on Earth capable of making a croissant, I mean The Croissant. To make the long story short, after a few days of Chinese breakfast, Chinese lunch and Chinese dinner, which basically look and taste the same, you start craving for a croissant and café crème. Don’t take me wrong, deep bow to Asian food, but when my friend suggested we go for a French treat, all of us embraced the idea.
So, we went to Amandine bakery, which offers pastry, bread and pralines. And guess what? We spent two hours, maybe more, with Arnaud, chatting about how he started his business in China. We talked about all aspects of it – from renting an office, filing all the documents to the Chinese authorities and recruiting staff, to creating a product for a completely new market and selling it.
You might think that chocolate is chocolate anywhere you go, but Arnaud actually had to accustom his praline recipes to the Chinese palette, which has a preference for less pronounced sweet flavours. I won’t go into the details of our conversation, but it was so very interesting. And real! I bet each of us pictured themselves opening a restaurant or an e-commerce of a kind in China for a second (well, at least I did). That, I thought, is practical knowledge and you need no school to get it.
My point is simple – schools do not have exclusive networks. Even if they do, who cares!? You and your friends do as well. And don’t fool yourself that your own network is not rich enough to get the experiences you are looking for. You might actually find out quite the opposite. I even think I should rename point one to 1. Your network is better than the one of your school!
So, save your money from the tuition fees and do something else with it. If I think about it, I could have probably started a small business in China with the money I paid for my MBA.
2. Anything you can learn at school, you could find on the Internet, and better!
I’m not saying the professors we meet in schools and what they teach is bad, we’ve had some pretty smart guys. Interesting backgrounds, lots of working experience, funny jokes, challenging discussions… but, hello!? We live in the 21st century. Most of these guys (and many more) are on the Internet, together with all the research papers they’ve written and all the presentations they’ve given. Probably you could even get your hands on material from a ‘better-ranked university’ or a ‘higher-ranked professor’ if this matters to you.
A lot of people would argue that it’s also about interacting with others, enlarging your network, etc. I’m sorry, but isn’t the Internet supposed to do these things as well? And like cheaper and faster?Whoa, point 2 was quick!3. Schools are slow!
Speed, this is something else I found a bit disappointing. Schools are slow. Either they employ slow people or they have lengthy processes, I don’t know, maybe both, but they are slow. At least slower than real life! I know because I applied to many, one replied 8 months later! I was already on a different planet.
I know for a fact that not all of them are like this and most try not to be, but at the end all of them take 6 months (give or take) to issue a diploma. This is just to give an example of many. Six months is like ages in the world we live in. May be they work in a slow system (government and educational authorities involved), I don’t know, but they are slow! Who can wait 6 months? And for what? A diploma? I mean, The Diploma?
Speaking of which, I’ve not heard of many employers looking at diplomas when taking the decision to hire you. I don’t have official numbers, but I guess 99% of all diplomas issued are only looked at by parents. Employers are interested in what you have done. It doesn’t mean they do not want to hear about what you’ve studied, but if you explain you did 'just' an e-course in Accrual Accounting with professor X from university Y and travelled to country Z and visited/worked/volunteered (fill in the verb) for this and that company, I think he or she will appreciate it. If not, probably it’s not the right place for you to be.
The question now comes: Didn’t I know points 1, 2 and 3 above before I started my studies? Maybe, I did, but I thought (stupidly) that I needed a ‘serious thing to do’. And ‘a framework’, whatever this means. I remember I found meaning in this word, but not anymore.
So mum, I have news for you. The bad one is - I was wrong. Big time! As a matter of fact, you too.The good news is that now I know. If I want to learn just about anything, I’ll go find it out myself, or with friends who are interested in the same thing, but no school please. It might be harder but it will be real - real networking, real learning at real life speed!And if someone is thinking that I’m trying to get credit or, even worse, traffic to this blog, by using James Altucher’s popularity, you are wrong! To be honest, I feel more like Greg Smith resigning from Goldman Sachs today. Well, at least like someone who has been part of the system and knows how it works (or in our case how it doesn’t anymore) and has decided to speak up.And just for the record - we are closing this blog. Right now, with this very post. We’ve got new ideas we want to explore. I guess we’ll start bragging about it on Twitter when we are ready.
