Rat race for MBA......

www.inseadblogger.com I started this blog during my MBA @ INSEAD in 2006 and i thought i was a good idea to keep everybody uptodate. 1.5 years later it still goes on but with a different twist. i have met many people through y blog who are interested in an MBA one way in another. The mails i receive are more alike the same: Name, age, profession, nationality, years of experience and function. The questions pertain whether they are good enough for an MBA. They ask for interview advices and sometimes essay help. Well last week while in Vietnam a surprise email was waiting for me. It was a quite long email written in a structured way with clear eludicity. The author though startled me. He/She was 17 years old and wanted to know what they should do while in undergrad in order to get an MBA at the age of 24. 18-22 undergraduate at financial engineering, 22 to 23 master in hedge funds( or something similar) 23 to 24 a year abroad working in a bank or a fund and then an MBA. At the same asked if a CFA was doable after 21 and last but not least what languages to learn. you can understand now my beddazlement. A high school student, who will enroll at Princetopn this fall, had already a life plan. Is life a rat race? I mean i read an article about undergraduates creating investment clubs un order to improve their cvs and chances to get hired. whoah how have times changed. Even some years ago being an undergraduate was the first brush with freedom and independence, a different look at life. Yes it was about furthering and increasing one's mental capabilities and critical way of thinking, but fun was an integral part of the package. Will we stop hearing the phrase : *my student years were the best of my life*. life is a rat race, yes i agree. For every person who succeeds there are at least 99 who don't. But the rat race in most western countries was confined to the workplace and one' s contribution there. Academic places were based on socratic principle that they should foster knowledge creation and knowledge creators. if you bring competition in the sanctuary of knowledge it will infest every part of the chain. even the kindergartens. Look at singapore, people lives and choices are determined on how they do at exams in high school and in the university. a B instead of an A can be a completely different life. on top of that there is not a strong correlation between academics successes and business ones. look at S.Korea now. The sponsor of the rat race. children there face extreme pressure in regards to academics. The exams in Korea destroy families sometimes. Many koreans to shield their children from the ultra-unhealthy environment, send their families to the philippines. south Korea is the world's second country when it comes to suicides( the first is Japan). but if you look at age brackets, Korea dominates the youth league... Well as for me i decided to do an MBA when i was 21, not 17. once we start lowering the bar there will be no stopping. am i overreacting? time will tell.